Discussion about models for estimation of relative humidity - case study of the brazilian coast versus influence in concrete durability

Abstract

Relative humidity is very important for different applications in engineering, including the durability of concrete structures. However, it has been noted that in several cities there are no weather stations with complete time series data. The aim of this paper is to discuss models available in literature to estimate the relative humidity and check its behavior for marine environments. The methodology consisted in comparative analyzes of relative humidity predicted by models and values measured by weather stations for a period of 30 years of data. Two models for 16 different cities of the Brazilian coast were analyzed. For analysis and comparison of these data, the statistical performance of results was evaluated. Among the results, it has been observed through statistical analyzes that one of the models showed better conditions to estimate the relative humidity for marine environments than the other one. However, the need for developing a more appropriate model for this kind of environment has been identified.