Washing machine
Industrial washers

By contrast, commercial washers for internal business operations (which are often referred to as "washer/extractor" machines) may include features absent from domestic machines. Many commercial washers offer an option for automatic injection of five or more different chemical types, so that the operator does not have to deal with constantly measuring out soap products and fabric softeners for each load by hand. Instead, a precise metering system draws the detergents and wash additives directly from large liquid-chemical storage barrels, and injects them as needed into the various wash and rinse cycles. Some computer-controlled commercial washers offer the operator detailed control over the various wash and rinse cycles, allowing the operator to program custom washing cycles.

Most large-scale industrial washers are horizontal-axis machines, but they may have front-, side-, or top-load doors. Some industrial clothes washers can batch-process up to 800 pounds (360 kg) of textiles at once, and can be used for extremely machine-abusive washing tasks such as stone washing or fabric bleaching and dyeing.

An industrial washer can be mounted on heavy-duty shock absorbers and attached to a concrete floor, so that it can extract water from even the most severely out-of-balance and heavy wash loads. Noise and vibration are not as unacceptable as in a domestic machine. The machine may be mounted on hydraulic cylinders, permitting the entire washer to be lifted and tilted so that fabrics can be automatically dumped from the wash drum onto a conveyor belt once the cycle is complete.

One special type of continuous-processing washer is known as the tunnel washer. This specialized high-capacity machine does not have a drum where everything being washed undergoes distinct wash and rinse cycles. Instead, the laundry progresses slowly and continuously through a long, large-diameter horizontal-axis rotating tube in the manner of an assembly line, with different processes at different positions.
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