An environment chamber at Nottingham Trent University.
The chamber uses cutting-edge equipment to control variables such as temperature, humidity and altitude. This allows those operating it to recreate the conditions of nearly any environment in the world. The chamber’s internal climate can range from -30 degrees Celsius to 60 degrees Celsius and from sea level to the top of Everest.
By training athletes within the chamber, researchers are able to carefully monitor physical activity to study the impact of different climates on the human body. It has also been used by Team GB to prepare athletes for the 2020 Olympics by recreating the same conditions they’ll face in Tokyo.
The project was undertaken by environmental control specialists TIS Services. To faithfully imitate the humidity of any location in the world requires precision control. This led them to specify HygroMatik’s FlexLine Plus steam humidifier.
Richard Goddard of TIS Services, commented: “We had very specific and stringent humidification needs for the environmental chamber. The majority of steamers on the market are designed for spa applications. These often come with a lot of outputs, such as lights, scented essence pumps and other features that we did not need.
“What we did needed was precision, to deliver the exact level of humidification required. After we outlined the environmental chamber’s humidification need with HygroMatik we were given the opportunity to try its FlexLine Plus system in-house. Being able to see it in action confirmed that this was the product we needed.”
A stable and controlled climate was crucial for Nottingham Trent’s environment chambers. Fluctuations in air humidity would disrupt experiments and athletes’ conditioning training, failing to deliver accurate results and harming training processes respectively.
The FlexLine Plus system was developed especially for the use in precision humidification in sensitive areas as well as the stabilisation of relative air humidity in laboratories and research facilities. This made it the perfect option for the high requirements of the environment chambers.