Humidification

Humidification is the artificial regulation of humidity in home environments, industrial environments, and health care applications such as artificial respiration.

To be comfortable, people require a certain amount of ambient humidity -- not too high, and not too low. Adequate humidification in a manufacturing environment stabilizes moisture in wood, paper, and textiles, while preventing warping in glue joints.

In all environments, humidification reduces fire risk and static electricity while making the area feel comfortable.

Humidification is achieved using liquid atomisers which distribute moisture to the area, coupled with accurate sensors which measure ambient humidity.

In humidification, two quantities are commonly used.

 Absolute humidification:

        Absolute humidification is expressed in grams of moisture per cubic volume of air.

Relative humidification:

        Relative humidification is expressed as a ratio between the amount of moisture currently in the air and the maximum moisture the air could hold before condensation occurs.

 Many humidifiers are cheap and require little maintenance. In industrial settings, they are often hung from the ceiling among duct work. Humidification is intimately tied to heating and cooling systems. The level of humidity in the air is also a function of the temperature. Therefore, humidity control systems are often integrated with cooling systems.

Humidification systems are designed by mechanical engineers and are also linked to ventilation systems. Given adequate ventilation from the outside, the humidity of an indoor environment will tend to reach equilibrium with the humidity outside. Humidification is also used to "relax" old documents that have become wrinkled with age.

IMPORTANCE OF RH AND TEMPERATURE:
The atmospheric conditions with respect to temperature and humidity play very important part in the manufacutring process of textile yarns and fabrics.

The properties like dimensions, weight, tensile strength, elastic recovery, electrical resistance, rigidity etc. of all textile fibre whether natural or synthetic are influenced by Moisture Regain.

Moisture regain:

Moisture regain is the ratio of the moisture to the bone-dry weight of the material expressed as a percentage.

Many properties of textile materials vary considerably with moisture regain, which in turn is affected by the ambient Relative Humidity (RH) and Temparature. If a dry textile material is placed in a room with a particualr set of ambient conditions, it absorbs moisture and in course of time, attains an equilibrium.

Some physical properties of textile materials which is affected by RH is given below:

·         Strength of COTTON goes up when R.H.% goes up

·         Strength of VISCOSE goes down when R.H.% goes up

·         Elongation %ge goes up with increased R.H.% for most textile fibres

·         the tendency for generation of static electricity due to friction decreases as RH goes up

·         At higher levels of RH , there is also a tendency of the fibres to stick together

Temparature alone does not have a great effect on the fibres. However the temperature dictates the amount
of moisture the air will hold in suspension and , therefore, temperature and humidity must be considered together.