Sensible Heat Ratio (SHR) is the ratio of which quantities?

• A. Sensible heat transfer to total (sensible + latent) heat transfer for a process.
• B. Latent heat transfer to sensible heat transfer.
• C. Total heat transfer over time.
• D. Heat loss to heat gain.

Answer: (A)

Sensible Heat Ratio tells you what portion of the total heat transfer is due to temperature change of the air, excluding moisture effects. It compares the energy that actually changes air temperature (sensible heat) to the overall energy transferred, which includes both sensible and latent (moisture-related) heat. So SHR is the sensible heat transfer divided by the total heat transfer: QS divided by (QS plus QL).

If only sensible cooling or heating occurs, SHR would be 1. If significant moisture removal or gain happens, SHR drops toward 0 because latent heat becomes a larger share of the total.

The other descriptions don’t match this concept: the latent-to-sensible ratio would measure how much moisture-related energy there is relative to temperature-change energy, not the ratio used here; total heat transfer over time would be the amount of energy, not a ratio; and heat loss to heat gain describes direction, not the composition of heat transfer.