Continuous laundry drying apparatus

Claim 1

Apparatus for drying laundry articles comprising: a housing having an article loading means and a dried article ejection means spaced therefrom, wherein the article loading means comprise: a. an inlet opening in said housing for receiving batch loads; b. a closure mechanism movable over said inlet opening and responsive to gravity to move to a closed position; c. a conveyor external to said housing and positioned to feed articles to said inlet opening; d. first means adjacent the conveyor and responsive to articles thereon of a first selected size to open mechanically and automatically said closure mechanism by an amount related to the size to the article; and e. second means adjacent the conveyor and responsive to articles thereon of a second selected size larger than said first size to open mechanically and automatically said closure mechanism for a predetermined time interval; the apparatus further comprising: a single rotary drum having an article input portion adjacent to said article loading means and an article exit opening at its opposite end and in communication with said dried article ejection means; an air inlet opening into an article input portion of the drum, and air outlet means for receiving air from the drum and for imparting an axial component to the air flow toward the dried article ejection means in the direction of movement of laundry articles toward the ejection means; air conduit means mounted externally of said housing having portions in alignment with said air inlet opening and said air outlet means respectively; an air heating means and an air blower means mounted in said air conduit means; and annular partition means having a central opening and extending radially interiorly from an internal periphery of the rotary drum walls to divide the drum into a plurality of sections.