From Concept to Commissioning: The Walk-In Chamber Project Lifecycle.

Performing environmental tests on a full, operational vehicle in a walk-in environmental chambers presents unique challenges. The first is the massive thermal load. A running vehicle generates a significant amount of its own heat, and the chamber's conditioning system must be powerful enough to overcome this and maintain the desired setpoint. The second challenge is managing exhaust fumes. A specialized exhaust extraction system must be integrated with the chamber to safely vent the vehicle's emissions to the outside. Third, the chamber floor must be heavily reinforced to handle the vehicle's point loads from the tires and be equipped with a dynamometer for certain tests. WBE addresses these challenges by engineering our drive-in chambers with oversized cooling systems, integrated exhaust ventilation, and dynamometer-ready floor structures, providing a complete and safe solution for full-vehicle testing in a walk-in environmental chambers.

Walk-in environmental chambers are used when the item to be tested is too large, too heavy, or too numerous for a standard reach-in chamber. Their primary use is for system-level testing of large, fully assembled products. The automotive industry uses them as "drive-in" chambers to test complete vehicles under various climate conditions. The aerospace industry tests large satellite dishes, wing sections, and avionics racks. In renewable energy, they are used to test large solar panels and grid-scale battery storage systems. Another common use is for batch testing, where racks of smaller components can be placed inside and tested simultaneously for greater throughput. Essentially, a walk-in environmental chambers provides the ability to understand how a large, complex system or a large quantity of products will perform when subjected to environmental stresses like temperature and humidity.

For many products, especially those in the automotive and renewable energy sectors, testing the effects of solar radiation is critical. WBE can integrate advanced solar simulation systems into our walk-in environmental chambers to replicate the full spectrum of natural sunlight. This is achieved by installing an array of specialized metal halide or xenon arc lamps in the ceiling of the chamber. These systems can be designed to meet various international standards for solar simulation, controlling for factors like irradiance intensity (W/m²) and spectral distribution. The chamber's main conditioning system then works to manage the significant heat load generated by these lamps. This integrated capability allows engineers to test for a product's colorfastness, material degradation from UV exposure, and the total heat load effect on an operating system, all within a single, controlled walk-in environmental chambers.

The installation of a walk-in environmental chambers is a major undertaking that requires significant facility planning well in advance. You must first ensure you have a suitable location with a strong, level concrete floor capable of supporting the chamber and product weight, which can be many tons. The chamber's powerful conditioning systems require a high-capacity, three-phase electrical service, often several hundred amps. A process water loop or cooling tower connection is typically needed for the refrigeration system's heat rejection. The ceiling height of your building must be sufficient to accommodate the chamber and any top-mounted equipment. Finally, you need to plan a clear path from your building's receiving dock to the final installation site that is wide and tall enough for the chamber components to pass through. WBE provides detailed site preparation drawings and works with your facilities team to ensure a smooth installation of your walk-in environmental chambers.