Design and Analysis of an Active Balancing Mechanism for a Vertical Axis Washing Machine

In recent years, active balancing of washing machines has drawn much attention from manufactures. This paper proposes a novel active balancing mechanism for vibration suppression of a vertical axis washing machine which employs water for counteracting the unbalanced laundry. At first, a novel structure with two balancing planes sharing only one set of nozzles for injecting water is designed and the balancing capability of the structure is analyzed. Then, a dynamic model of the active balancing system is constructed. Vibration characteristics of the system including changes of the vibration amplitude and phase angle under different influences are studied. After that, a strategy for identifying the imbalance is proposed and an active control method is designed. At last, a washing machine armed with the active mechanism is manufactured. Both a fixed eccentric block and a pile of randomly distributed laundry are used to test the balancing effect. The results show that lateral vibrations of the washer can be greatly reduced by the active mechanism. Due to the simplicity of the structure and the satisfactory balancing effect, the mechanism proposed has a big potential to be employed in future washing machines.