Largest climatic test chamber in Europe
Our climatic test service is used by OEM’s and component suppliers from different industry sectors to test and validate the functional compliance of large and/or heavy electro-mechanical machinery in extreme climatic conditions, from arctic cold to desert heat. Extreme temperature levels, temperature cycles, humidity, and solar infrared heat loads are simulated in the large climate chamber, one of the largest in Europe.
Unique climatic test infrastructure tailored to industry needs
Our large climatic test chamber was designed with a number of unique features in order to facilitate different industries that manufacture large and heavy machinery in their climatic test and validation needs
The large inner dimensions (10.6m x 7m x 8m test space) and more than 150 ton weight capacity make it possible to test heavy machinery or validate multiple prototypes in one test run. The climate chamber is installed on a break-bulk terminal in the port of Antwerp, enabling easy water, train and land logistics and quay handling of the targeted test specimens for our international customers.
Test temperatures can range from -60°C to +60°C, making it possible to test every possible ambient temperature on earth in either cold or hot climate markets with high precision ±1K.. The installed cooling power in the laboratory can also compensate 250 kW of heat load at -20°C, 30kW at -60°C and allows us fast cooling of the air temperature in the climate chamber from +60°C to -40°C in one hour. Perfect to validate cold start-up behavior of large and heavy machinery, and test products on a system level.
The laboratory is equipped to carry out air humidity and dry-heat tests in a range of ± 2%RH to ±95%RH. Also a IR solar light array with 10 - 950W/m² operating range for solar infrared heat simulation, thermal cycling programming software, exhaust air systems for vehicle testing, air ventilators, ice-spray guns to simulate icing events, different types of temperature sensors and DAQ systems are available to provide a one-stop-shop climatic tests to our customers.
Validating extreme working conditions for different industries
Different machinery like wind turbines components, off-highway vehicles, construction and mining machinery, electrical grid infrastructure, aerospace components and military equipment are often required to survive and operate under extreme temperatures and climatic conditions ranging from artic cold, to tropical heat and/or dry heat desert conditions. We offer unique test infrastructure to test such machinery for every possible climatic condition on earth in order to ensure reliable and save operations in such harsh environments.
Mining machinery and wind turbines in Northern Siberia or Canada, for example, need to withstand temperatures down to -40°C or even -60°C in certain extreme cases. On the other hand, solar energy plants or construction equipment in regions such as India, Australia, and the Middle East must be developed to cope with an ambient temperature rise to +55°C or more. Heating, ventilation and cooling performance (HVAC) of such power plans and the driver comfort for off-highway machinery in such hot climate conditions become of the importance in these regions. Such extraordinary working conditions require extreme testing and validation methods, and dedicated test infrastructure to fulfill customer needs.
Apart from this unique test infrastructure and associated test services, our test lab engineers can also add value in the consultancy support for:
- Environmental and climatic test planning
- Climatic test engineering
- Thermal modelling & simulation, model validation support
What types of machinery can we test?
Off-highway vehicles
(mining, construction, forestry, agricultural, defense, ...)
Wind energy applications
Energy and power transmission equipment
Aerospace and radar applications
Would you like to test performance of your machinery in extreme conditions?
We offer independent tests tailored to your needs, or we rent out the test facility to your company test and validation department, shared R&D or academic research projects.
Some references
