An environmental chamber, also called a climatic chamber or climate chamber, is an enclosure used to test the effects of specified environmental conditions on biological items, industrial products, materials, and electronic devices and components.
Such a chamber can be used:
# as a stand-alone test for environmental effects on test
specimen
Specimen may refer to:
Science and technology
* Sample (material), a limited quantity of something which is intended to be similar to and represent a larger amount
* Biological specimen or biospecimen, an organic specimen held by a biorepository ...
s
# as preparation of test specimens for further
physical tests or
chemical tests
# as environmental conditions for conducting testing of specimens
Overview
An environmental test chamber artificially replicates conditions which machinery, materials, devices or components might be exposed to. It is also used to accelerate the effects of exposure to the environment, sometimes at conditions not actually expected.
Chamber testing involves testing and exposing products to various environmental conditions in a controlled setting. Climatic Chamber testing and Thermal Shock testing are part of chamber testing. Climatic Chamber testing is a broad category of ways to simulate climate or excessive ambient conditions exposure for a product or a material under laboratory-controlled yet accelerated conditions. On the other hand, Thermal Shock testing is used to simulate how materials will react when exposed to changes in extreme climatic conditions, such as going from extremely cold to extremely hot conditions in a very short period of time (usually only few seconds).
These conditions may include:
* extreme temperatures
* sudden and extreme temperature variations - thermal shock
*
altitude
Altitude or height (also sometimes known as depth) is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context ...
* moisture or
relative humidity
Humidity is the concentration of water vapor present in the air. Water vapor, the gaseous state of water, is generally invisible to the human eye. Humidity indicates the likelihood for precipitation, dew, or fog to be present.
Humidity dep ...
* electrodynamic
vibration
Vibration is a mechanical phenomenon whereby oscillations occur about an equilibrium point. The word comes from Latin ''vibrationem'' ("shaking, brandishing"). The oscillations may be periodic, such as the motion of a pendulum—or random, suc ...
s
* electromagnetic radiation
*
Cyclic corrosion testing
*
salt spray
*
rain
Rain is water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides water ...
*
weathering
Weathering is the deterioration of rocks, soils and minerals as well as wood and artificial materials through contact with water, atmospheric gases, and biological organisms. Weathering occurs '' in situ'' (on site, with little or no movemen ...
* exposure to sun, causing
UV degradation
*
vacuum
A vacuum is a space devoid of matter. The word is derived from the Latin adjective ''vacuus'' for "vacant" or " void". An approximation to such vacuum is a region with a gaseous pressure much less than atmospheric pressure. Physicists often di ...
Manufactured samples, specimens, or components are placed inside the chamber and subjected to one or more of these environmental parameters to determine reliability or measure after-effects such as corrosion. In the case of machinery such as internal combustion engines, byproducts such as emissions are monitored.
An environmental chamber can be a small room used both to condition test
specimen
Specimen may refer to:
Science and technology
* Sample (material), a limited quantity of something which is intended to be similar to and represent a larger amount
* Biological specimen or biospecimen, an organic specimen held by a biorepository ...
s and to conduct the test. It can be a smaller unit that's used for conditioning test items. Also, some chambers are small enough to be placed onto a
universal testing machine or other test apparatus.
Many chambers are set at a certain set of conditions. Others can be programmed to cycle through specified sequences of conditions.
Design
As test requirements may be relatively simple or complex, environmental test chambers vary widely in size, ranging from small units designed for placement on bench tops to large walk-in chambers. Test chambers generally have viewports or video feeds to allow for visual inspection of the sample during the test. Reach-in chambers provide an opening that technicians may use to handle test samples. Chambers providing interior visual lighting must take into account the heat generated and compensate accordingly.
As with the wide variance in size, a number of user control options are available, ranging from simple analog indicators up to more modern digital readouts with LCD displays. Chambers may be computer programmable, and networked or Web-enabled test chambers with built in web servers are also available.
Types of test chambers
* Mechanically cooled test chambers
*
Liquid nitrogen
Liquid nitrogen—LN2—is nitrogen in a liquid state at low temperature. Liquid nitrogen has a boiling point of about . It is produced industrially by fractional distillation of liquid air. It is a colorless, low viscosity liquid that is wi ...
cooled test chambers
* Modular Walk-in Chambers
Test chamber standards
Several
standards organization
A standards organization, standards body, standards developing organization (SDO), or standards setting organization (SSO) is an organization whose primary function is developing, coordinating, promulgating, revising, amending, reissuing, interpr ...
s provide
standards and guidance on environmental test chamber construction, temperature control standards, and
engineering tolerances.
*
Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology
- wewontech.com
* Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute (formerly the American Refrigerant Institute)
* American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers Air conditioning#Heating
* ASTM International
ASTM International, formerly known as American Society for Testing and Materials, is an international standards organization that develops and publishes voluntary consensus technical standards for a wide range of materials, products, systems, a ...
* Underwriters Laboratories
The UL enterprise is a global safety science company headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois, composed of three organizations, UL Research Institutes, UL Standards & Engagement and UL Solutions.
Established in 1894, the UL enterprise was founded as ...
* NSF International
* FM Global
* Canadian Standards Association
* International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Ar ...
* MIL-STD-810, "Test Method Standard for Environmental Engineering Considerations and Laboratory Tests", presently (2010) version G, issued in 2009
* IEC 60068, "Environmental Testing", with many parts.
See also
* Cyclic corrosion testing
* Salt spray test
* Environmental stress cracking
* Doriot Climatic Chambers
* Accelerated aging
* Environmental stress screening
* Environmental stress fracture
In materials science, environmental stress fracture or environment assisted fracture is the generic name given to premature failure under the influence of tensile stresses and harmful environments of materials such as metals and alloys, composi ...
* MIL-STD-810, DoD Standard for Environmental Engineering Considerations and Laboratory Tests
* Shelf life
Shelf life is the length of time that a commodity may be stored without becoming unfit for use, consumption, or sale. In other words, it might refer to whether a commodity should no longer be on a pantry shelf (unfit for use), or no longer on a ...
* Standard conditions for temperature and pressure
Standard temperature and pressure (STP) are standard sets of conditions for experimental measurements to be established to allow comparisons to be made between different sets of data. The most used standards are those of the International Union ...
* Thermo-mechanical fatigue test
* Universal testing machine
* Weather testing of polymers
* Stabilizers for polymers
References
{{reflist
Tests
Environmental testing