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Humidity: Could Be Present in The Air. Relative Humidity Indicates The Degree of Comfort or
Humidity: Could Be Present in The Air. Relative Humidity Indicates The Degree of Comfort or
Humidity: Could Be Present in The Air. Relative Humidity Indicates The Degree of Comfort or
HUMIDITY refers to the mass (lb. or kg) of water vapour per unit mass of dry air
or moles of water vapour per mole of dry air.
Humidity specifys the amount of water vapor in the air.
Example: if the water vapor in 1 cubic meter of air weighs 35 grams, the absolute
humidity of the air is 35 grams/cubic meters (35 g/m3).
2. Specific humidity is the mass of water vapor compared with the mass of all the
air in the parcel (including vapor).
3. Relative humidity is the absolute humidity divided by the amount of water that
could be present in the air. Relative humidity indicates the degree of comfort or
discomfort one feels from the humidity, because it indicates the amount of
perspiration that can evaporate from the skin.
4. The mixing ratio is the mass of water vapor divided by the mass of dry
air.
Both specific humidity and mixing ratio are expressed as grams of water
vapor per kilogram of air (g/kg).
Dew Point:
The dew point is a good indicator of the air's water vapor content. High dew points
indicate high water vapor content; conversely, low dew points indicate low water
vapor content. Addition of water vapor to the air increases the dew point; removing
water vapor lowers it. This is the temperature at which air attains saturation and a
further addition of water vapour which leads to dew formation because of
condensation of water vapour. It is rarely used to indicate the moisture content of
air/atmosphere.
Degree of Saturation:
It is stated as the ration of weight of water vapour in air at a given conditions to the
weight of the water vappour in air at saturation, keeping temperature constant. It is
also called saturation ratio or percentage humidity.
Measuring Humidity:
1. Introduction
Air comprises approximately 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% other gases. But
air is never dry, even in a desert. Two-thirds of the earths surface is covered with
water and this, along with other surface water and rain, maintain low pressure
water vapor to be suspended in the air making up part of the 1% of other gases.
The psychrometric chart indicates the properties of this water vapor through the
following parameters, each of which is explained in more detail below:
relative humidity
Whichever method is used, this measurement is called the dry bulb temperature
because the end of the thermometer that is making the measurement has no
moisture on it.
The temperature of the air is measured in F in the USA and in C everywhere else.
When the air sample is saturated with water (that is, it has 100% relative
humidity), no water can evaporate from the moist tissue so the WB temperature
will read the same as the DB temperature. This temperature is therefore also
referred to as the saturation temperature. This temperature is indicated by diagonal
lines on the chart.
This is the temperature of the air at which a moist air sample reaches water vapor
saturation. It is equivalent to a wet bulb temperature at 100% relative humidity. At
this combination of temperature and humidity, further removal of heat results in
water vapor condensing into liquid.
This is also known as the humidity ratio and is usually designated as W. It is the
proportion of the mass of water vapor per unit mass of dry air. Humidity ratio is
dimensionless, but in the US it is usually expressed as pounds of moisture per
pound of dry air; elsewhere it may be expressed as grams of water per kilogram of
dry air or as a percentage.1
In the US, enthalpy is measured in BTU per pound of dry air; elsewhere it is
measured in Joules per kilogram of air.
2.7 Specific volume
This is the inverse of density. Specific volume is therefore the volume per unit
mass of the air sample. This is shown as diagonal lines on the chart.
People feel comfortable within a small range of temperatures and humidities. The
ranges vary based on where you live and on the time of year. In the northern
hemisphere, people typically wear more clothes in winter than in summer.
Therefore, rooms are maintained at cooler temperatures in winter than in summer.
People are sensitive to humidity because water evaporates from the skin and this
evaporation cools the body. At a high humidity, water evaporates from the skin
slowly, so we feel warmer. At a low humidity, water evaporates faster and we feel
colder. The effect of perceived increase in temperature with increase in humidity is
referred to as the Heat Index and is shown graphically in the figure.1
The psychrometric chart shows the two comfort zones typically acceptable for US
citizens.
Answer: Look at horizontal axis to find 70F. Move a pencil up this line to meet
the intersection with the diagonal line for 60F. Identify that this point falls just
over half way between the lines of relative humidly for 50% and 60%. The answer
is 56% relative humidity.
Question: An air conditioning system is not working well. The temperature of the
evaporator coil is 53F. The air in the room is at 76F and 40% relative humidity.
Will the air conditioner remove moisture from this air?
Answer: Look at the horizontal axis to find 76F. Move a pencil up this line to
meet the intersection with the exponential line for 40% relative humidity. Move the
pencil to the right to read the dew point. This is 50F. The evaporator coil is
warmer than the dew point so it will not condense water from the air.
4.3 Cooling a house
Question: A house is 4500 ft and has 12 ft ceilings. For comfort, the home owner
specifies 0.3 changes of air per hour. The outside air temperature is 90F dry bulb
and 73.5 wet bulb. The air indoors is 75F dry bulb 50% relative humidity. What
is the amount of cooling required to provide the fresh air?
Answer: The total volume of the house is 4500 x 12 = 54,000 ft. We need to
change 54,000 x 0.3 = 16,200 ft/hour (which equates to 270 ft/minute or cfm).
From the psychrometric chart, the enthalpy of the incoming air is 37.0 BTU/lb and
the specific volume is 14.2 ft/lb. Therefore the energy of the incoming air is
16,200 x 37 / 14.2 = 42,211 BTU/hour. Similarly, the enthalpy of the air indoors is
16,200 x 28.1 / 13.7 = 33,228 BTU/hour. The heat difference is 8,984 BTU/h, or
about 0.75 tons.
At first appearence the psychrometric chart is quite confusing, however with some
practice it becomes an extremely useful tool for rapidly evaluating air-conditioning
processes. The most popular chart in common usage is that developed by
ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning
Engineers), however we feel that the construction of a simplified version of the
chart based on approximations of the various equations can be a very useful tool
for developing an understanding of it's usage.
The basic information used to construct the chart is the water vapor saturation data
(Tsat, Pg) which is obtained from steam tables over the range from Tsat = 0.01C
through 50C. The specific humidity is then evaluated using the relative
humidity as a parameter to produce the various relative humidity curves (blue
lines) as follows:
The major simplifying assumption in the construction of the chart is that the
enthalpy of the mixture is assumed to be constant throughout the adiabatic
saturation process. This implies that the evaporating liquid added does not
significantly affect the enthalpy of the air-vapor mixture, leading to the constant
slope wet bulb temperature / enthalpy (red) lines defined by:
Finally, the specific volume of the air-vapor mixture (green lines) is determined
from the ideal gas relation as
Solved Problem - Assume that the outside air temperature is 32C with a relative
humidity = 60%. Use the psychrometric chart to determine the specific humidity
[18 gm-moisture/kg-air], the enthalpy h [78 kJ/kg-air], the wet-bulb temperature
Twb [25.5C], the dew-point temperature Tdp [23C], and the specific volume of the
dry air v [0.89m3/kg]. Indicate all the values determined on the chart.
Solved Problem: Assume that the outside air temperature is 8C. If the air in a
room is at 25C with a relative humidity = 40%, use the psychrometric chart to
determine if the windows of that room which are in contact with the outside will
become foggy.
The air in contact with the windows will become colder until the dew point is
reached. Notice that under the conditions of 25C and 40% relative humidity the
dew point temperature is slightly higher than 10C, At that point the water vapor
condenses as the temperature approaches 8C along the saturation line, and the
windows will become foggy.