The Environment Chamber
The Environment Chamber is a recently-commissioned analytical service that simulates a wide range of environmental conditions in a precisely-controlled setting.
It is capable of analysing the effects of variables such as temperature fluctuation, humidity and rainfall/acid rain on natural and artificial materials or products, providing clients with a range of research, development and product-testing services.
The Environment Chamber
What does it do?
The Chamber can be used to carry out the following:
- Temperature cycling tests
- Freeze-thaw tests
- Humidity cycling tests
- Combined temperature and humidity cycling tests
- Rainfall simulation tests
- Acid rain simulation tests
By simulating various environmental conditions, the ‘weathering’ process can be accelerated to see how and over what time-scale the weather can damage any material. For instance, it is possible to use the Chamber to replicate 5 years of weather in only 5 days.
Some examples of its use:
- The Chamber can be used to test new materials and evaluate their resistance to extreme temperatures, humidity, rain, freeze-thaw conditions, etc. This can be done over a relatively short period of time as natural environmental and climatic conditions can be accelerated.
- The impact of various environmental conditions can be tested on samples of building materials in order to better understand how weather can damage buildings, such as monuments of cultural interest.
- Effects of atmospheric pollution (e.g. acid rain) can be tested on various test samples to better understand and evaluate how pollution impacts buildings or monuments of cultural interest.
Projects
Incorporation of Waste Products into Building Materials