Monday, 27 January 2014

What is Specific Humidity?

Specific Humidity:

Specific humidity (or moisture content) is the ratio of water vapor,  m_v , to unit mass of dry air  m_a in any given volume of the mixture, and is sometimes referred to as the humidity ratio.Specific humidity is approximately equal to the "mixing ratio", which is defined as the ratio of the mass of water vapor in an air parcel to the mass of dry air for the same parcel.
Specific Humidity is defined as:
 SH = {m_v \over (m_v + m_a)}.
Specific humidity can be expressed in other ways including:
 SH = {0.622 {p_{(H_2O)}} \over {p_{(dry\, air)}}}
 0.622 = {{MM_{H_2O}} \over {MM_{dry\, air}}}
or:
 SH = {{0.622 p_{(H_2O)}}\over {p-0.378*p_{(H_2O)}}}.
Using this definition of specific humidity, the relative humidity can be expressed as
 \phi = {{SH*p}\over {(0.622+0.378*SH) p^*_{(H_2O)}}}\times 100
However, specific humidity is also defined as the ratio of water vapor to the total mass of the system (dry air plus water vapor).For example, the ASHRAE 2009 Handbook, Ch1,1.2, (9a) defines specific humidity as "the ratio of the mass of water vapor to total mass of the moist air sample".

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