What does an Environmental Monitoring Chamber do?

Building materials, pharmaceuticals, fabrics, precision instruments, electronic components, but also drinks and foods: almost all the products that surround us in daily life must undergo a rigorous series of tests approved by international bodies before being placed on the market.

For battery and storage testing, discover the FDM Battery Test Chamber, designed for testing under controlled conditions.

Many of these tests are designed to evaluate the effects of exposure to various environmental factors on a product. The environmental control chamber is the instrument used to perform these tests.

What is meant by Environmental Control?

Environmental control refers to the exposure of a material or product to a range of environmental factors in a controlled environment.

This is a simulation that reproduces the atmospheric conditions that the material or product will face throughout its life cycle. The environmental parameters that can be reproduced in the tests range from the most common, such as temperature and humidity, to more specific tests such as sun exposure, corrosion, and various types of precipitation simulated with precision instruments.

The laboratory instrument that allows us to reproduce all these environmental factors is the environmental control chamber.

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Discover the new series of Environmental Chambers for controlled climate testing. Find out more.

Is there a difference between a Climatic Chamber and an Environmental Chamber?

Climatic chamber is the generic name we give to all instruments that perform environmental control tests. However, it is also the specific name for the standard version of these laboratory instruments. When we talk about an environmental control chamber, , we are referring to the Environmental Chamber , which has significant differences.

The climatic chamber generally has a temperature range between 0/70°and can reach a maximum of  -30/80° with appropriate modifications.

On the other hand, the environmental chamber surpasses it in both extremes: in its standard version it has a range of -70° downhill and 180° uphill, but some chambers can even -80°. 

For this reason, the environmental control chamber is used for so-called extreme temperature tests that are essential in many sectors, including automotive, military, aerospace and electronic components in general.

Here is our article dedicated to automotive testing , which also covers testing of various electronic components.

The FDM Environmental Control Chamber

The FDM Environmental Chamber is the perfect tool for performing environmental control tests on all products and materials that require extreme testing in order to be approved to international standards.

In addition to the temperature and humidity parameters , the FDM environmental chamber can be equipped with additional instruments to perform other fundamental tests such as the corrosion test in the environmental chamber, the solar exposure test using an Ultraviolet LED lighting system.

For further modifications and customizations of your environmental chamber, do not hesitate to contact us: FDM technicians put their professionalism at the customer's service to satisfy all their needs.

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Reference Standards

• IEC 60068-1:2013 — Environmental testing – Part 1: General and guidance. General reference for all environmental tests on components and equipment.
• IEC 60068-2 (full series) — Specific methods: -1 cold (Ab), -2 dry heat (Bb), -30 cyclic moist heat (Db), -78 steady moist heat (Cab).
• MIL-STD-810H (2019) — Environmental Engineering Considerations and Laboratory Tests, US military standard with 29 environmental methods.
• ISO 16750-4:2023 — Road vehicles – Environmental conditions and testing for electrical and electronic equipment – ​​Part 4: Climatic loads.
• RTCA DO-160G — Environmental Conditions and Test Procedures for Airborne Equipment, avionics reference.
• ECSS-Q-ST-70C — Materials, mechanical parts and processes, ESA standard for space equipment.

Authoritative Sources

• IEC – International Electrotechnical Commission. International electrotechnical standards body, responsible for the IEC 60068 series of environmental testing standards.
• ASTM International. American standards body with hundreds of methods for climatic tests in every sector.
• RTCA. Avionics standards body, publishes DO-160, the global benchmark for aerospace environmental qualification.
• ECSS – European Cooperation for Space Standardization. ESA-industry cooperative standards system for the space sector.

Frequently Asked Questions about Environmental Control Chambers

What is the technical difference between a climatic chamber and an environmental chamber?

The distinction is in size and performance. A standard climatic chamber typically operates in the range -25 °C ÷ +70 °C (some up to -40/+85 °C) with 10-98% RH, intended for ICH Q1A/B pharmaceutical stability testing, ISO 139 textile testing, and consumer electronics conditioning. The environmental chamber extends the range to -70 °C ÷ +180 °C (up to -80/+200 °C in special configurations) with faster ramps (3-15 °C/min), required for automotive AEC-Q100, aerospace MIL-STD-810 and RTCA DO-160, and semiconductor JEDEC qualifications. The construction difference lies in the refrigeration system: climatic chambers use a single cascade with R449A/R452A, environmental chambers require a double cascade of R507/R23 or R508B to reach -70 °C with significant thermal loads. Insulation, doors and chamber materials also differ to ensure extreme performance.

What are the most common environmental parameters simulated in the laboratory?

The main factors reproduced in the environmental control chamber are: temperature (extended ranges -70/+180 °C for space and automotive qualification); relative humidity (10-98% RH with psychrometric control); solar radiation via xenon or metal-halide lamps according to ISO 4892, ASTM G155, with irradiance 0.35-1.2 W/m²/nm at 340 nm; salt spray for corrosion ISO 9227 NSS/AASS/CASS; pressure for altitude tests (up to 100,000 ft for aerospace); vibration according to MIL-STD-810 Method 514. More specific parameters include controlled atmospheres (O₂/N₂/CO₂) for storage simulations, dust and sand (IEC 60529 IP6X), rain (IEC 60529 IPX5/IPX6/IPX7), and freeze-thaw for building materials. High-end environmental chambers integrate multiple parameters into a single, synergistic test environment.

What thermal uniformity is required for AEC-Q100 automotive qualification?

AEC-Q100 refers to IEC 60068-2-14 Nb for thermal cycling and JESD22-A104 for temperature cycling, both with a set point tolerance of ± 3 °C referred to the specimen but with chamber uniformity of ± 2 °C in the useful volume. For the more severe Grades (Grade 0: -40/+150 °C, Grade 1: -40/+125 °C) environmental chambers with 5-10 °C/min ramps, temporal stability ± 0.5 °C, backup sensors and control redundancy are required. The volume occupied by the specimens must not exceed 30% of the useful volume to maintain uniformity. The chambers must be IQ/OQ/PQ qualified with 9-point mapping in no load and 5 points with representative load. For Grade 0 (extreme under-hood conditions) a chamber with an extended range of -50/+170 °C is recommended to have margin on the set points. Continuous recording (at least 1 Hz) with audit trail is a typical OEM requirement.

How to size the chamber volume with respect to the test specimens?

The general rule is to keep specimen volume ≤ 30% of the usable chamber volume, with a minimum spacing of 100 mm from the walls and 50 mm between specimens. For dynamic tests with rapid ramps, the rule is stricter: ≤ 20% because the thermal mass of the specimens slows down the transitions. For multiple batch qualification tests (e.g. 20-50 statistical specimens), a floor chamber > 500 liters is required. For R&D on single devices, a 50-200 liter benchtop chamber is sufficient. The air flow must be ≥ 0.5 m/s on all exposed surfaces. For active thermal loads (specimens under burn-in power), the refrigeration system must dissipate both the thermal and electrical load of the specimens: the calculation includes P_total = P_load + Q_walls + Q_{air exchange}, with compressor sizing for the worst case. FDM offers catalogs with load vs. minimum achievable temperature curves for each model.