Humidity and its measurements

Introduction
• It is defined as the water-vapour content of the air
• Normal atmospheric air in most of the cases is humid
• The capacity of air to hold moisture increases with
temperature
• Higher humidity reduces the effectiveness of sweating in
cooling the body by reducing the rate of evaporation of
moisture from the skin.
• Humans are sensitive to humid air because the human
body uses evaporative cooling as the primary mechanism
to regulate temperature.
 Types of Humidity
• There are three main measurements of humidity;

– Absolute humidity

– Relative humidity

– Specific humidity
 Absolute humidity
• Absolute humidity is the total mass of water vapor present in
a given volume of air.

• It does not take temperature into consideration.

• Absolute humidity in the atmosphere ranges from near zero

to roughly 30 grams per cubic meter when the air is saturated
at 30 °C.

• Absolute humidity is the mass of the water vapor (H2O),

divided by the volume of the air and water vapor mixture ,
which can be expressed as:
 Absolute humidity
• This is rarely used in mine ventilation analysis.

• Volume of air passing through ventilation system keeps

changing because of variation in temperature and pressure.

• Thus, use of absolute humidity is discouraged

 Specific Humidity
• Specific humidity is a ratio of the water vapor
content of the mixture to the total air content on a
mass basis.

• Mathematically it is expressed as follow:

 Relative humidity
• It is defined as the ratio of vapour pressure at a temperature
to the saturation vapour pressure at that dry bulb
temperature.

• It can also be defined as “the amount of water vapors in the

air divided by the maximum amount of water the air can hold
at any given temperature”

• It should be kept in mind that for calculating relative humidity,

saturation vapour pressure is taken at dry bulb temperature
and not at wet bulb temperature.
 Relative Humidity
• Numerically it can be expressed as:

Td = Dry Bulb Temperature oC

Tw = Wet Bulb Temperature oC
 Problem
• if we have a dry bulb temperature of 25℃
and a wet bulb temperature of 18℃ what is
the relative humidity?
S. Method Apparatus Details /Principle used
No /Instruments
. used
01 Thermodynamic Psychrometers Measuring wet bulb and dry bulb temperatures, and
applying various equations
method
02 Using hygroscopic Hair Substances generally used are organic like bones, hair etc.
They are prone to volumetric and elasticity change when
substances hygrometers exposed to moisture

03 Condensation Dew-point Cooling of air lowers the temperature but not the actual
vapour pressure (AVP) of water content in it. We know that
method hygrometers saturation vapour pressure(SVP) is proportional to
temperature. Lowering of temperature causes lowering of
SVP, and a time comes when at a particular temperature
SVP equals AVP.

04 Absorption Some of the chemical compounds (like calcium chloride,

silica gel, etc.) are hygroscopic in nature. Through them a
methods measured amount of air is passed. These compounds
absorb water from the air. The increase in their weight
A) Chemical gives a direct measure of the water vapour content of the
method air.

B) Electrical Electronic psychrometers or humidity meters- Some of the

compounds or semi-conductors show change in their
methods resistivity and other electromagnetic properties in moist