Humidity distribution affected by freely exposed water surfaces: simulations and experimental verification.

Accurate models for the water vapor flux at a water-air interface are required in various scientific, reliability and civil engineering aspects. Here, a study of humidity distribution in a container with air and freely exposed water is presented. A model predicting a spatial distribution and time evolution of relative humidity based on statistical rate theory and computational fluid dynamics is developed. In our approach we use short-term steady-state steps to simulate the slowly evolving evaporation in the system. Experiments demonstrate considerably good agreement with the computer modeling and allow one to distinguish the most important parameters for the model.