Atmospheric air at 1.013 bar and 35°C has relative humidity 60%. ...
Given data:
- Atmospheric pressure = 1.013 bar
- Temperature = 35°C
- Relative humidity = 60%
- Saturation pressure of water vapor at 35°C = 5.628 kPa
To find: Specific humidity of water vapor in kg vapor per kg dry air
Solution:
1. Calculate the partial pressure of water vapor in the air:
- At 60% relative humidity, the air contains 60% of the maximum amount of water vapor it can hold at 35°C.
- The maximum amount of water vapor that air can hold is given by the saturation pressure at that temperature, which is 5.628 kPa.
- Therefore, the partial pressure of water vapor in the air is 0.6 x 5.628 kPa = 3.377 kPa.
2. Calculate the partial pressure of dry air:
- The total pressure of air is 1.013 bar, and the partial pressure of water vapor is 3.377 kPa. Therefore, the partial pressure of dry air is (1.013 - 0.03377) bar = 0.9792 bar.
3. Calculate the specific humidity of water vapor:
- Specific humidity is defined as the mass of water vapor per unit mass of dry air.
- To calculate this, we need to know the mass of water vapor and the mass of dry air in a unit volume of air.
- The mass of water vapor can be calculated from the partial pressure of water vapor using the ideal gas law:
- PV = nRT, where P is the partial pressure, V is the volume, n is the number of moles, R is the gas constant, and T is the temperature.
- Rearranging, n = PV/RT.
- For water vapor, the molecular weight is 18.015 g/mol and the gas constant is 8.314 J/(mol.K).
- Therefore, the mass of water vapor per unit volume of air is:
- (3.377 x 1000)/(8.314 x 308) x 18.015/1000 = 0.0198 kg/m³.
- The mass of dry air per unit volume of air can be calculated from the ideal gas law using the total pressure and the partial pressure of dry air:
- P_total = P_dry + P_water, where P_total is the total pressure, P_dry is the partial pressure of dry air, and P_water is the partial pressure of water vapor.
- Rearranging, P_dry = P_total - P_water.
- For dry air, the molecular weight is 28.97 g/mol.
- Therefore, the mass of dry air per unit volume of air is:
- (1.013 x 10⁵)/(8.314 x 308) x 28.97/1000 = 1.176 kg/m³.
- Finally, the specific humidity of water vapor is:
- 0.0198/(1.176 + 0.0198) = 0.0167 or 0.0214 (rounded to four significant figures)
Therefore, the specific humidity of water vapor in the air at 1.013 bar and 35°C with 60% relative humidity is 0.0214 kg vapor per kg dry air, which is option (c).
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