Abstract: An installation is provided for the wet treatment of textile materials disposed on material-carriers, comprising a tank with means for loading or unloading the material-carriers, a means for causing the treatment fluid to flow through said materials and, possible, a heat exchanger, each material-carrier having a box shaped base with an aperture for connection to an aperture of an adjacent material-carrier, or for connection to a first pipe of said fluid moving means which opens into a treatment volume so as to form a first fluid flow in one direction, the flow of said fluid in the other direction following a path which includes at least a second pipe of said fluid moving means also opening into said volume, this latter being limited laterally by walls extending between the floor and the vault of the tank and said first pipe and at least said second pipe each open into said volume through one or more passages formed in the vicinity of the floor of the tank.

Abstract: In a clothes washer of the type which has an array of tuckers and which is reciprocated vertically toward and away from the bottom of a container of washing liquid, a diaphragm is mounted to have an extended orientation during downward stroke for displacing liquid, and a relatively collapsed orientation during upward stroke, and a volume-outlining, clothes-restraining open uper structure provided over the diaphgram, this open structure extending upwardly from the diaphragm so that at least a part of it extends above the normal liquid level when the washer is in its lowest position. In action, as the diaphragm displaces liquid downwardly, the open structure, in following behind the diaphragm, restrains articles of clothes from moving inwardly over the diaphragm but allows liquid to move inwardly through the clothes and through the open structure to fill in behind the diaphragm.

Abstract: The specification discloses an improved washing machine having an outer wash tub adapted to be filled with water to a desired predetermined level. An inner perforated washtub is mounted in a concentrically spaced relationship to said outer wash tub and is adapted to receive the clothes to be washed. A compressor unit is adapted to reciprocate from the top to the bottom of said wash tub to briefly agitate the clothes and then to squeeze the water from them from the inside out.