Test chambers image courtesy of Cincinnati Sub Zero.
At a given moment, all manner of fascinating and bizarre experiments could be under way at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The Space Center, which has been the seat of the United States’ manned space program since 1961, celebrates its golden anniversary this year. JSC occupies itself with many tasks, and among those tasks is the conduction of experiments that test the performance of equipment in Continue reading
It’s a safe bet that every product that is shipped from one place to another during the course of its lifespan will be subject to some amount of vibration. In fact, there’s no need to bet. Vibration is a reality for every product that meets that criteria, and that’s also true for a wide variety of industrial equipment that is never moved from one place to another. This is because almost any machine that involves the use of Continue reading
Thermal shock chamber image courtesy of ESPEC North America.
There are a surprising number of contexts in which products must be resistant to thermal shock. Just as a reminder: thermal shock is the stress or damage to an object caused by a sudden, dramatic change in ambient temperature. Most of those contexts have arisen as a result of the advancement of our technology and our ambition. Just a few examples include flight, space flight, underwater research, manufacturing Continue reading
Salt spray chamber image courtesy of Hastest Solutions.
It’s sometimes hard to believe that salt, a seemingly benign and harmless substance, can wreak such havoc on so many different kinds of materials. In cold climates we watch how it corrodes our cars’ undercarriages, damages heavy equipment, stains pavement and causes other kinds of damage during and after winter. In coastal areas, salt spray and saline fog can also cause corrosion to vehicles, equipment and even buildings. In order to develop more Continue reading
Because of the wide variety of different experiments and tests that are conducted in environmental test chambers, the variety of available chambers must be equally varied. Tests of pharmaceutical products’ resistance to humidity or high temperatures must be conducted in small chambers, tests of an engine’s performance in very low temperatures must be conduced in a medium-sized chamber and tests on the performance of very large equipment must be performed in chambers that Continue reading
Altitude chamber image courtesy of Russells Technical Products.
Altitude chambers, which are also known as hypobaric chambers, have been invaluable in simulated high-altitude research and in other research related to the affects of extreme or variable atmospheric pressure levels on humans. They are also often used for the treatment of ailments related to those conditions, diving and high altitude aviation in particular. They are somewhat different from other environmental test chamber varieties in that they are often used to perform tests on humans, though Continue reading
Environmental testing is a very important process in many different sectors of industry and commerce. It is used to help professionals understand how their products will behave when exposed to conditions of extreme heat or cold, humidity or dryness, low and high air pressure and many other conditions. The equipment used to facilitate these tests ranges greatly in terms of size, capabilities and applications. In some cases, this equipment can be extremely large, such as in the case of test chambers used Continue reading
Cryopreservation, the process of freezing living isms temporarily, is an increasingly important part of medicine; this is true in both research and, to a somewhat lesser extent, applied medicine. Research in cryopreservation continues to demonstrate the capacity of living cells, groups of cells and even tissue to be frozen and then unfrozen later without serious detrimental effects. The implications of this are Continue reading
In 1610, German scientist Otto von Guericke went before Frederick William I, Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, with 24 horses, two metal hemispheres and a pump. He pressed the two hemispheres against each other, and using his new invention, the vacuum pump, he pumped the air out of the enclosure created by the joined hemispheres. He then harnessed 12 horses to each hemisphere and made them Continue reading
Think of all of the environmental and climatic conditions you can imagine – hot and cold, cloudy and sunny, rainy and snowy, humid and dry and any others that come to mind. We humans have managed to place ourselves in all manner of environmental conditions, and in order to survive and enjoy life in those conditions we’ve developed vast numbers of tools and amenities. As those tools become more Continue reading