Chainless mercerizer suitable for use with liquid ammonia

Claim 1

In a chainless mercerizing machine comprising a first roll series consisting of a plurality of smooth surfaced, horizontally disposed, axially parallel, tandem and rotatably mounted rolls, radially spaced to provide nip space and rotational clearance between adjacent rolls, said first roll series being provided with a driving means adapted to revolve the rolls severally at constant and equal rate; a second roll series less by one in number and similar to said first roll series, said second roll series consisting of a plurality of uniform, smooth surfaced, radially spaced, horizontally disposed, axially parallel rolls, tandem mounted and freely rotatable, said second roll series being positioned immediately above said first roll series, each individual roll member of said second roll series being positioned within the nip space formed by a pair of rolls of said first roll series immediately beneath, and being driven by both members of said pair via roll surface contact; the improvement which consists of an incremental increase in roll diameter from the first driven roll relative to fabric travel to the last driven roll, the diametric increase being at least 1 percent and not more than 5 percent distributed throughout all of the driven rolls.