During the first days of testing — reported here — weather conditions were not ideal for high evaporation rates, has can be observed from the observed values for solar radiation, air temperature, relative humidity and wind speed in Figs.3.1 and 3.2:

100 90 80 70 60 50 : 40 30 20 10 0

5.0

4.5

4.0

3.5

3.0

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0 0.5 0.0

This first set of data was analysed, allowing comparison of evaporation results in the prototype with the predicted ones, after simulation with the numerical model in [2]:

Evaporation results illustrated in Fig.3.1 clearly show that the ingredients in the model clearly overestimate the evaporation that took place.

The air flow within the ASD prototype was monitored after measurement of air velocities in the evaporation section, 30 cm above the brine surface, and solar chimney section, according to the scheme in Fig.2.5. Air flow velocities in those sections over the 12 days monitoring period were in accordance to Fig.3.4: