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Humidity Practical

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26 views

Humidity Practical

Uploaded by

tharunshreeram13
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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STUDY OF HUMIDITY MEASURING INTRUMENTS

Humidity is a weather phenomenon which is measured by the quantity of water vapour


or moisture that is present in the air. Various terms are used to express humidity. They are

I. Absolute humidity – The actual amount of water vapour present in atmosphere; it is


the weight of water vapour per unit of volume of air; expressed in gm/cubic metre
II. Relative humidity – The percentage of moisture present in atmosphere as compared
to its full capacity at a given temperature; Relative humidity = actual amount of
water vapour in air (absolute humidity)/ humidity at saturation point (the maximum
water vapour air can hold at a given temperature) × 100
III. Specific humidity – It is expressed a weight of water vapour per unit of air. Since it is
measured in units of weight (gm/kg). Absolute humidity and relative humidity are
variable whereas specific humidity is a constant.
IV. Dew point – The air containing moisture to its full capacity at a given temperature is
said to be saturated. It means that the air at given temperature is incapable of
holding any additional amount of moisture at that stage. So the temperature at
which saturation occurs in a given sample of air is known as dew point and it occurs
when relative humidity equal to 100%.

Generally humidity is expressed in terms of relative humidity. The measurement of


humidity is known as hygrometry or psychrometry. The instruments used for the
measurement of humidity are called hygrometer or psychrometer.

Humidity measuring instruments

The instruments required for measurement of relative humidity are:

1. Simple or stationary psychrometer.


2. Assmann psychrometer.
3. Whirling psychrometer.
4. Hair hygrometer.

Simple or Stationary Psychrometer

A simple psychrometer is a set of dry bulb and wet bulb thermometers of identical form and
size exposed in a Stevenson’s Screen. The dew point temperature and relative humidity are then
estimated from the hygrometric tables.

Assman Psychrometer

A pair of vertically fixed dry and wet bulb thermometers with cylindrical bulbs form this
psychrometer. The bulbs are protected from external radiation by means of two polished coaxial
tubes. The temperature and relative humidity of both open and inside crops are measured by this
psychrometer.

Whirling Psychrometer
Sling or whirling psychrometer is an instrument where two thermometers are mounted on a
frame, which is rotated or whirled by hand in order to provide the required ventilation of the bulbs.

One is a dry bulb thermometer, the other a wet bulb thermometer. One of these is naked
while the other has its bulb tightly dressed in fine muslin with a wick that draws pure water from a
container thus keeping the bulb wet. Now, when air is blown fast the bulbs, the dry thermometer
shows the temperature of the air, while water evaporates from the wet bulb. Since heat is required
to evaporate water, the temperature of the wet bulb thermometer sinks; it does so until a state of
equilibrium is reached and then stays steady.

The saturation vapour pressure at the wet bulb is then the same as that of the air and no
further evaporation takes place. The temperature shown by this thermometer is called the wet-bulb
temperature and we may say that this temperature is the lowest temperature to which the air can
be cooled by evaporating water into it.

Now if the air is saturated initially, no evaporation would occur and the dry-bulb and wet-
bulb temperatures would be the same; the relative humidity would be 100 per cent and the wet-
bulb depression would be zero. Once the air temperature and the wet-bulb temperature have been
observed, the relative humidity and all other humidity measures can be obtained from tables or
graphs. By entering tables with the dry-bulb temperature and the difference between the wet and
dry bulbs, the dew point and relative humidity can be found.

Hair Hygrometer

Hair hygrometer is a type of absorption hygrometer and uses the techniques of mechanical
moisture detection. The hair hygrometer uses the characteristic of the hair that its length expands or
shrinks response to the relative humidity. When air is dry, the cells in the hair are close together;
when the air is humid, the space between the cells absorbs water vapour and air thickens and
lengthens. It is this lengthening that is used as a measure of the moisture. The hair hygrograph is a
hair hygrometer to which a clock-driven drum is installed to record humidity on a recording chart.

Principle:

• Due to humidity several materials undergo a change in physical, chemical and electrical
properties.
• This property is used in transducer designed and calibrated to directly read the relative
humidity.
• Hygroscopic materials like human hair, animal membranes, wood, paper, etc., undergo
changes in the linear dimensions when they absorb moisture from the surrounding air.
• Change in linear dimension is used as the measurement of the humidity present in the air.
Construction:

 The hair is arranged on a parallel beam and separated from each other to expose them to
the surrounding air / atmosphere. Numbers of hairs are placed in parallel to increase the
mechanical strength.
 This hair arrangement is placed under a small tension by the use of a tension spring to
ensure proper functioning.
 The hair arrangement is connected to an arm and a link arrangement and the link is attached
to a pointer rotated at one end. The pointer sweeps over a calibrated scale of humidity

Working:

 When air humidity is to be measured, this air is made to surround the hair arrangement and
hair arrangement absorbs moisture from surrounding air and expands or contracts in linear
direction.
 Expansion or contraction of hair amount moves the arm and the link and, therefore, the
pointer to a suitable position on the calibrated scale and, therefore, indicates the humidity
present in the air / atmosphere.

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