In practice, it is not convenient to measure the wet-bulb temperature using an adiabatic saturator. In stead, a thermometer with a wetted wick is used to measure the wet bulb temperature as shown in Fig. It can be observed that since the area of the wet bulb is finite, the state of air at the exit of the wet bulb will not be saturated, in stead it will be point 2 on the straight line joining 1 and i, provided the temperature of water on the wet bulb is i. It has been shown by Carrier, that this is a valid assumption for air-water mixtures. Hence for air-water mixtures, one can assume that the temperature measured by the wet-bulb thermometer is equal to the thermodynamic wet-bulb temperature4 . For other gas-vapor mixtures, there can be appreciable difference between the thermodynamic and actual wet-bulb temperatures.
Schematic of a wet-bulb thermometer and the process on psychrometric chart
