Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology 6(16): 2984-2987, 2013

ISSN: 2040-7459; e-ISSN: 2040-7467

© Maxwell Scientific Organization, 2013
Submitted: January 08, 2013 Accepted: January 31, 2013 Published: September 10, 2013

A Method to Measure Humidity Based on Dry-Bulb and Wet-Bulb Temperatures

Yongping Huang, Ke Zhang, Shufan Yang and Yushan Jin
The College of Computer Science and Technology, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China

Abstract: This study tries to analyze the theory of measuring humidity based on dry-bulb and wet-bulb
temperatures. And a theoretical formula is deduced for the calculation of relative humidity from dry-bulb and wet-
bulb temperatures. Through analysis of the theoretical formula, a two-dimensional conversion table is produced to
transform dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperatures into relative humidity. A method is proposed to obtain humidity by
combining searching table and linear smoothing algorithm, which is suitable for rapid control. Error analysis and
experimental data indicate that the relative error is less than 4%. The proposed method has certain value for
humidity control in industrial control process.

Keywords: Dry-and-wet bulb equation, dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperatures, linear smoothing, relative humidity

INTRODUCTION temperatures (Zelin et al., 2010). The dry-and-wet bulb

equation (Jun, 2008) is:
The air Relative Humidity (Hr) is an important
control parameter in the wood drying process. There are ew − A * P * ∆t
several different methods to measure the relative= Hr × 100 (1)
ed
humidity, such as electronic humidity sensor
hygrometry, paper hygrometry and psychrometric
hygrometry. The maintenance of psychrometric where,
hygrometry is simple. In practical use, we just Hr = The relative humidity
periodically add water to wet bulb and replace the e w = The saturation vapor pressure in the wet-bulb
gauze of wet bulb. Compared with electronic humidity temperature
sensor hygrometry and paper hygrometry, e d = The saturation vapor pressure in the dry-bulb
psychrometric hygrometry will not produce the temperature
problems of aging and decline in accuracy. Therefore, A = The measuring humidity coefficient
psychrometric hygrometry is more suitable for P = The mean atmospheric pressure
measuring humidity in the harsh environment (Zelin Δt = The difference between the dry-bulb temperature
et al., 2010). and the wet-bulb temperature (assumed to be
Traditional psychrometric hygrometry requires Td - Tw)
searching the saturation vapor pressure table. There are
hundreds of thousands of data in the table. It is a huge According to formula (1), we can note that: The keys to
workload to store the table in the microcontroller and getting relative humidity are e w , e d and A.
the memory capacity is also not allowed. Therefore the In this study, we use the Buck formula (Buck,
table is not suitable for embedded applications (Xiaoyin 1981) to calculate e w and e d . Compared with the
and Liangen, 2003). A more efficient method of saturation vapor pressure formula which is proposed by
searching table and smooth transformation to calculate Coff in 1965 (Xihua et al., 2003; Smithsonian, 1984),
the air relative humidity is proposed based on the the Buck formula is simpler and easier. The Buck
theoretical dry-and-wet bulb equation. And the formula is as follows:
proposed method is suitable for humidity control in
industrial control process. 17.502*t
E = 6.112 * e 240.97 + t (2)
CALCULATION OF RELATIVE
HUMIDITY FROM DRY-BULB AND
WET-BULB TEMPERATURES According to formula (2), we can get e w and e d .
They are:
The principle of psychrometric hygrometry is that
17.502*Tw
the humidity is calculated by the dry-and-wet bulb 240.97 +Tw
equation according to dry-bulb and wet-bulb ew = 6.112 * e (3)

Corresponding Author: Yushan Jin, The College of Computer Science and Technology, Jilin University, Changchun 130012,
China
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Table 1: Conversion table of dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperatures to relative humidity

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
20 91 82 74 66 58 51 44 37 30 24 17 11 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
25 92 84 77 70 63 56 50 44 38 32 27 22 16 11 7 2 0 0 0 0
30 93 86 79 73 67 61 55 49 44 39 34 29 25 20 16 12 8 4 1 0
35 93 87 81 75 69 64 59 54 49 44 40 35 31 27 23 20 16 13 9 6
40 94 88 82 77 71 66 62 57 52 48 44 40 36 32 29 26 22 19 16 13
45 94 89 83 78 73 69 64 60 55 51 47 44 40 37 33 30 27 24 21 19
50 95 89 84 79 75 70 66 62 58 54 50 47 43 40 37 34 31 28 26 23
55 95 90 85 80 76 72 68 64 60 56 53 49 46 43 40 37 34 32 29 27
60 95 90 86 81 77 73 69 65 62 58 55 52 49 46 43 40 37 35 32 30
65 95 91 86 82 78 74 70 67 63 60 57 54 51 48 45 42 40 37 35 33
70 95 91 87 83 79 75 72 68 65 61 58 55 52 50 47 44 42 39 37 35
75 96 91 87 84 80 76 73 69 66 63 60 57 54 51 49 46 44 41 39 37
80 96 92 88 84 80 77 74 70 67 64 61 58 55 53 50 48 45 43 41 39
85 96 92 88 85 81 78 74 71 68 65 62 60 57 54 52 49 47 45 43 40
90 96 92 89 85 82 78 75 72 69 66 63 61 58 56 53 51 48 46 44 42
95 96 93 89 86 82 79 76 73 70 67 64 62 59 57 54 52 50 48 46 43
100 96 93 89 86 83 80 77 74 71 68 65 63 60 58 56 53 51 49 47 45

so complex to calculate humidity that isn’t suitable for

embedded applications which are limited in resources.
According to formula (6), we get a two-
dimensional table which transforms dry-bulb and wet-
bulb temperatures into relative humidity while the dry-
bulb temperature (T d ) is assumed to be 20, 25, 30…95,
100 and the difference between the dry-bulb
temperature and wet-bulb temperature (Δt) is assumed
to be 1, 2, 3 …39, 40. Parts of data are shown in
Table 1 and the row of Table 1 is T d and the column of
Table 1 is Δt.
Figure 1 is the surface chart generated by Table 1.
As shown in Fig. 1, we note that the surface has a
smooth trend.

SEARCHING TABLE AND SMOOTH

Fig. 1: Calculated data distribution diagram
TRANSFORMATION

17.502*Td
In Table 1, for the dry-bulb temperatures (T d ) in
240.97 +Td the data table, such as 20, 25, 30 and so on, we can
ed = 6.112 * e (4) obtain their humidity data directly.
However, for T d not in the data table, their
A is the conversion factor which can be calculated humidity can be obtained by linear smoothing. The first
by empirical formula (Butler and García-Suárez, 2012): thing is to find the upper and lower limits of the
neighboring segment of T d . Then, we look up the table
=A 0.00066 * (1 + 0.00115* Tw ) (5) to find the humidity values of the upper and lower
limits. At last, we linearly smooth the two humidity
values to get the humidity value of T d .
When P is the mean atmospheric pressure
For example, when T d is 53 and T w is 41, we find:
(assumed to be 1013.25024 mb), substituting T dl is 50 and T dh is 55. Because the difference between
formulas (3), (4) and (5) into formula (1), we have: T d and T w is 12, we note: Hr l is 47, Hr h is 49. Then we
17.502*Tw
have:
6.112*e 240.97 +Tw − 0.00066*(1 + 0.00115* Tw ) * P *(Td -Tw )
Hr = *100 Hrh − Hrl Hr − Hrl (7)
17.502*Td
(6) =
6.112*e 240.97 +Td
Tdh − Tdl Td − Tdl
17.502*Tw

611.2*e 240.97 +Tw − 66.8745*(1 + 0.00115* Tw )(Td -Tw ) Then note that:
= 17.502*Td
240.97 +Td
6.112*e
Hrh − Hrl
Hr =
Hrl + * (Td − Tdl )
Tdh − Tdl
As shown in formula (6), we note that: the Relative (8)
Humidity (Hr) depends on both the dry-bulb and wet- = 47+(49-47)*(53-50)/(55-50)
bulb temperatures (T d and T w ). However, formula (6) is ≈ 48
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Table 2: Comparison of theoretical values and linear smooth values

Start Relative humidity (%)
Dry-bulb Wet-bulb -------------------------------------
temperature temperature Theoretical Linear smooth Relative
Calculate difference of dry-bulb and (°C) (°C) values values error (%)
wet-bulb temperatures 20 15 58.8 58.0 1.4
36 21 25.1 24.2 3.6
45 29 30.7 30.0 2.3
Find the upper and lower limits of the
58 44 45.0 44.8 0.4
neighboring segment of Td 60 58 90.4 90.0 0.6
72 62 62.4 61.8 0.9
Search the table to find the 85 77 71.6 71.0 0.8
corresponding humidity of both limits 91 84 75.7 75.4 0.4
according to the upper limit ,lower limit 98 87 65.5 64.6 1.4
and difference of dry-bulb and wet-bulb 100 87 60.8 60.0 1.3
temperatures
In point of computing speed, searching table is
faster than theoretical formula. And the linear
Linear smoothing transformation
smoothing algorithm is also fast and the algorithm time
complexity is only Ο (n). In this study, we use a
combination of searching table and linear smoothing
End
algorithms, which is very suitable for embedded
applications with limited resources.
Fig. 1: Flow chart of searching table and smooth Through of analysis of error and computing speed,
transformation the proposed method has certain value for humidity
control in industrial control process.
Based on the above ideas, the flow chart of
searching table and smooth transformation is shown in CONCLUSION
Fig. 2.
This study tries to analyze the theory of measuring
COMPARISON OF THEORETICAL VALUES humidity based on dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperatures.
AND LINEAR SMOOTH VALUES And a theoretical formula is deduced for the calculation
of relative humidity from dry-bulb and wet-bulb
The essence of the calculation method is that, when temperatures on the basis of accurately determining the
the conversion table obtained from the theoretical empirical formulas of measuring humidity coefficient
formula is as reference data, we search the reference and saturation vapor pressure. A conversion table is
data to find two humidity values according to the dry- produced according to the theoretical formula. A method
bulb and wet-bulb temperatures and linearly smooth the
is proposed to obtain humidity by combining searching
two values to obtain the humidity value of T d . As
table and linear smoothing algorithm, which is suitable
shown in Table 2, we randomly calculate ten values of
for rapid control. Experimental data shows that,
Hr and compare with theoretical values obtained from
manual look-up table (Environmental Standards compared with the traditional manual searching table,
Committee Working Group, 1986). the proposed method is not only simple and fast but also
According to Table 2, we note that, the maximum has high veracity. And its relative error is less than 4%.
relative error between the linear smooth values and the Therefore, the proposed method has certain value for
theoretical values is 3.6%. For the error analysis theory, humidity control in industrial control process.
we know that, the absolute error of total synthesis
function is equal to the algebraic sum of the product of REFERENCES
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