Washing machine manufacturers could cut their carbon emissions by replacing vibration damping concrete blocks with a plastic counterweight filled with water.
According to researchers at Nottingham Trent University, the solution could save the UK almost 45,000 tonnes of CO2 a year in transportation.
Prof Amin Al-Habaibeh, a professor in intelligent engineering systems, and undergraduate Dylan Knight, who studies BSc (Hons) Product Design, developed the counterweight to stop washing machines from vibrating during spin cycles.
Currently, manufacturers use concrete blocks weighing over 25kg to prevent washing machines vibrating heavily.
The use of concrete increases appliance weight and creates carbon emissions through the production and transportation of the material.
Knight tested the vacuum formed plastic prototype – which weighs less than 3kg when unfilled – and found it was as effective as a concrete counterweight when filled with water.
Prof Al-Habaibeh explained that the density of concrete is about 2400kg/m3, while the density of water is 1000kg/m3.
“So what we have done is to increase the size of the water container to take as much space as possible,” he said. “There are other ideas to compensate for the difference in density which we are developing with our industrial partner, but they are commercially sensitive to share at this stage.”
The new watertight design cuts the weight of the home appliance by 30 per cent, which in turn lowers the cost of fuel through appliance transportation, also reducing the risk of physical injury when lifting and installing the product.
According to NTU, research suggests that reducing the weight of a truck carrying washing machines by 100kg could save approximately 8.5g of CO2 and 0.35 litres of fuel per 100km in transportation distance.
Around 3.5 million washing machines are sold every year in the UK. If each was fitted with the new lightweight device – which is left unfilled until the appliance is installed – the carbon savings would equate to around 44,625 tonnes of CO2 and a reduced fuel consumption of 183,750 litres, when transported on average for only 50km.
The project has been run as part of a live brief from product design company Tochi Tech Ltd, who are working with researchers and students at the university to find innovative and sustainable solutions to appliance manufacturing.
Lovely concept(s) well done! Here is an excellent example of consideration of the ‘whole life cost’ of any product. (the ‘driver’ is literally the driver (of the delivery truck!) I do recall a report (and we are talking the 60s) where a firm manufacturing a complicated piece of sheet-metal ducting realised that completing such in their own ‘works’ meant that they could only get a few on each delivery truck. It was cost effective to give each large customer the final finishing machine – and pay for their operatives to do the final assembly: so that the items would fit into each other together on the delivery truck and hundreds could be carried at one time. I have to believe that there are still many similar circumstances for savings.
How do they prevent the water from slurping about?
Stick some baffles in there.
Would the water stored in the counterweight act as an extinguisher in the event of the washing machine catching fire?
\ I also do not think there is enough room within the standard 600 mm machine dimension to accomodate the extra volume of water.
If they’re really clever the “slurping about” could provide additonal damping!
Gosh! That’s baffling!
“internal baffles”
See above!
Correct me, but electricity and water are not the best of friends.
The IEE Electrical Wiring Regulations requires that all socket outlets in most domestic installations have RCD protection. I hope this helps, otherwise I will be in for a shock!
Electricity and water may not be best of friends, but that’s what fuses are for.
Actually this method has been done before, quite a number of years ago. It was developed as part of the Reason Washing Machine for Andrew Reason and we were involved in its early design & development.
Kind regards
Mark Thatcher
Managing Director
Quadratec Ltd
Prof Al-Habaibeh: density of concrete 2400kg/m3 :: so why use water when soil is same as concrete: Evermore exemplars for academically absurd sellership spawning slyience suffocating scholarship
If the washing machine isn’t on the ground floor in a room opening directly onto an outdoor space (and mine isn’t for a start), it’s going to be much easier to fill the weight-containers with water than with soil.
So use 2.4x the volume of counter weight.
Now, if they fed the water counter weight from the main, and drew from it to feed the drum, then the user could drain it prior to moving the device and make it much easier to handle over the whole of life.
Nothing new here, perhaps the student should have done a proper literature review (and dare I say it ‘The Engineer’) as it would quickly show it’s already been invented long ago: https://patents.google.com/patent/US3580014A/en
The other (possibly more positive observation) is that patent is around 50 years old. Why didn’t they implement it then? Was there less incentive then (think of the changes in attitudes to handling heavy items and fuel consumption/CO2 emissions). Maybe Zanussi did not crack the problem of the reduced mass – maybe computer modelling etc makes that more possible. In short, perhaps the concept is the same, but the implementation is better now – after all there has been progress in the last 50 years…
I do believe that there are some ‘cross-purposes’ being aired here.
[Though amazingly, the Times -no less- has repeated this story/article so many millions of its readers will be aware of it!] I too am aware that most ‘systems’ have sensible “regs” (endorsed/created by the appropriate professional body) to try to ensure that a possible accident is ‘contained’. My entire career I hope has been founded on the situation that if possible potential areas of ‘conflict’ -and water and electrical- is one should be designed out! Isn’t this something that as older Engineers we seek to make a part of the thinking of those we teach or train. Because an alternative is that we (and young inexperienced Engineers) can ‘tick-all-the boxes” say with hand on heart that we have done all we can…sleep soundly in our beds…until the unthinkable happens. Our professional lives (and sadly the meja/news/) are surely all littered with examples of errors which occurred in spite of the above precautions. Indeed sometimes because of them!
Do remember that this isn’t the only water in the electric washing machine. Furthermore, this is a fixed volume of water where the rest of the machine is hooked up to a near-infinite mains water supply. Switching back to concrete would only reduce the risk by a small amount.
Realistically speaking, how many time is the “average” washing machine moved from one location to the next one in its lifetime?
On the other hand, it could be a source of drinking water (once pathogens removed) in the event of a world changing EMT, or natural catastrophic event. Water is life.