Help with Evaporation Rates for school project

[JoshHarpst]

Hello everyone, my name is Josh Harpst (if you couldn't figure that out) and am in my 6th semester at slippery rock university. I am a Mathematic's major and just got an invitation into KME (Kappa Mu Epsilon) the national honoray Mathematics fraternity. To get inducted you must do a research project and i thought, hmm, with all the time i don't have what can i do? So i decided that i wanted to have it deal with something i am passionate about and that just so happens to be Saltwater Aquariums. Well the project has to deal with math so i decided i wanted to do research on Evaporation rates due to temperature in the saltwater aquarium. This will involve differential equations and such so it's mathematical. So what i need your help with is some information. Any sites or anything that deal with evaporation. The mission of this research is to model an equation that can help predict the mean rate of evap due to temperatue so that way aquarists can calculate the amount of water they need to drip into the system while the water is evaporating to keep salinity stable. Any help or motivation would be greatly appreciated. I have just started this reseach today and the project needs to be completed by April 10 to be inducted. So thanks in advance and hopefully i'll get this thing running. Thanks everyone.


~Josh Harpst

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

I'm not going to be much help, but I would suggest square one to be finding out the different factors that cause evaporation, such as temperature and air flow, if you don't find any research papers on the subject.

 

[JoshHarpst]

i forgot to state this in my original post but i will only be dealing with water/air temps and open surface area. There are tons of variables, but i am just trying to use these as i assume these to be the most influential on evaporation. This study is to get an average evap, with having so many variables, it would be extremely hard to predict. Thanks

~Josh

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

I know that KME is a math fraternity, but you may actually be looked down on by them if you don't include as many variables as you can. I hate to say it, but science and math go hand in hand. Definitely good luck and keep us posted with lots of information. Use us as your rough draft. It could make it to Thread of the Month

 

[Sm0kin]

I think with all of the variables you may want to setup your own test. Specific gravity is a major variable as is temp. Good luck and best wishes on your quest.

 

[slik_dude@yahoo]

I've found that in the winter, when my heater is running full blast and therefore the humidity inside my house is low, I have about double the evap as in the summer with the A/C running.

Good luck with the project.