On Sat, 30 Dec 2017 21:02:02 -0800 (PST), wrote:

snip

The faster the wind blows, the faster heat is transferred from ambient to the water in the clothes.

Ok.

I've subjected clothes to some pretty strong winds and afaik they've not frozen.

Ok.

I suppose if they did they'd thaw again almost instantly.

Ok.

The same basic principle applies to evaporation, the faster the wind speed the faster the evaporation.

So, for water to make the leap to vapour it must take energy from the
environment to do so. If that environment is open and therefore
potentially limitless then I could see that being the case. I'm not
sure how it might fair in an enclosed world (especially if the air was
trapped etc).

Fans dry clothes with a small fraction of the energy use of heat.

True ... but isn't that only true because it moves the water vapour
away from the clothes and increase the supply of low level energy?

Whoever designs tumble dryers must be stuck in the 20th century, they're abysmally slow and inefficient compared to their potential. And they damage clothes more than necessary.

I wonder why they haven't made a wind turbine model though?

Would it have to be much bigger to get sufficient airflow ... and
sound like a jet taking off?

I now a fan + de-humidifier make for a good low energy clothes dryer
but the separation has to be done manually. Maybe you would need to
try the concept in one of those skydiving machines first? ;-)

Cheers, T i m