Need assistance for a -40 degree cold chamber

[Don Wright]

Since there are a lot of very smart people from all sorts of industries on here, I thought I would throw this out.

We are trying to design a flexible cold chamber to go over a test article connected to a dynamometer. The chamber will be feed with 150,000 btu/hr and needs to be able to go down to -40 degrees. It also needs to be flexible at that temperature. And fire resistant. The chamber will be about 3 m x 3m x 3m in size.

I was thinking that maybe some of you space guys might have some ideas... Thanks.

[Erin Rapacki]

Have you searched your area for environmental test facilities? Last year I worked with a test facility who had about twenty, very durable, hot and cold chambers for testing electrical and mechanical hardware. Some were large, some were small, but all of them were so expensive that it was a better idea to contract the work out to the company who manages these chambers instead of building/buying our own.

[Don Wright]

Originally Posted by Erin Rapacki

Have you searched your area for environmental test facilities?

While that would be a good idea, it won't work for us in this case since we are delivering the dyno system and it needs the chamber with it. Do you by any chance remember the manufacturer of the chambers you spoke of?

[Jimmy Holmes]

We use a chamber made by Envirotronics. They make a wide variety of chambers for many uses. Try this link for some products...http://www.envirotronics.com/products.html

[Andy Baker]

Don,

At Delphi in Kokomo, we use many chambers from Cincinnati Sub Zero. I think that they can do what you are looking for.

Andy B.

[Jeff Pahl]

We use chambers from all of the already mentioned vendors, along with Thermomtron http://www.thermotron.com

Also, check out Scientific Climate Systems http://www.dryrooms.com/environ/index.html

The combination of -40, flexible, fire resistant, and 150,000 btu/hour heat load is going to be a tough combination. There are not many materials that stay flexible at that temp. The heat load is going to require multi-stage cascade cooling, or liquid nitrogen (or CO2) assist. It also will need to be purged out with some sort of dry gas, or everything inside will suffer the "popsicle effect".

Does the entire chamber need to be flexible, or just one side? We have several chambers that are set up with rubber floors to allow vibration testing to be performed. The other 5 surfaces are stainless steel and insulated.

-jeff

[Dave Flowerday]

One more link to throw out: Russells Technical Products. They make test chambers and we use them here at Motorola. They do a lot of custom chamber work for lots of different applications, and as a bonus they have engineers that are involved with FIRST.

[Joe Ross]

We use chambers from Screening Systems. We also have an old Thermotron. The Thermotron is from the good old town of Holland, Michigan.

[UlTiMaTeP]

I would go searching on mcmaster looking for the material specs you need and then make it. But then again, i like to build my solutions instead of buying them

[Don Wright]

Thank you for all your assistance.

I may have mis-wrote or spoke when I mentioned the 150,000 Btu. The chamber will be fed with cold air at -50 degrees C at a rate of 150,000 Btu/hr.

Maybe I'm still saying it wrong... I'm an EE...

[UlTiMaTeP]

Originally Posted by Don Wright

Thank you for all your assistance.

I may have mis-wrote or spoke when I mentioned the 150,000 Btu. The chamber will be fed with cold air at -50 degrees C at a rate of 150,000 Btu/hr.

Maybe I'm still saying it wrong... I'm an EE...

Did you think about using a platinum cured silicone?
its properties are -100F to 475F operating

[Mike AA]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

We use chambers from Screening Systems. We also have an old Thermotron. The Thermotron is from the good old town of Holland, Michigan.

WOO HOO ( live there )

-Mike

[Alexander McGee]

I'm sure you have your own methods of keeping the chamber cold, but have you looked into Peltier cooling? It is really quite ingenious, and these things can get really cold or really hot.

Check it out:

http://www.peltier-info.com/

[UlTiMaTeP]

sounds like cooling isn't a problem, problem is getting materials to work with the requested properties at the range of temperatures