Measuring the relative humidity of air is an important challenge for meteorological measurements, food conservation, building design, and evaporation control, among other applications. Relative humidity can be measured with a psychrometer, which is a hygrometer composed of two identical thermometers. The bulb of one thermometer is covered by a wick soaked with water so that evaporative cooling makes it indicate a lower temperature than the dry-bulb thermometer; it is possible to determine the relative humidity from the difference between these readings. We describe both a model and an experimental setup to illustrate the principle of a psychrometer for a pedagogical laboratory. The science of psychrometry could be more broadly taught at the undergraduate level to help introduce students to aspects of measurement techniques, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, and non-equilibrium thermodynamics.
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See the supplementary material online for a list with prices of the experimental components and the source code in Python to generate the Carrier chart.
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