Effects of variation of environmental parameters on the performance of Resistive Plate Chamber detectors

Performance of single gap Resistive Plate Chamber (RPC) detectors is investigated under variation of environmental parameters, such as temperature and relative humidity. Operational characteristics of the RPCs depend on both the environmental temperature and the relative humidity. Sensitivity to such dependence is found to be more on temperature rather than the relative humidity. Qualitative interpretation of some of the results obtained is given based on the known properties of the electrode materials and gases used in the detectors.