Climate-Altitude Chamber
Climatic-altitude chamber serves a wide variety of testing needs. Ambient temperature can be controlled between –45 °C and +55 °C and ambient pressure can be reduced up to a level found at an altitude of 4,000 metres. The chamber’s dynamometers enable transient testing of both light and heavy-duty engines and vehicles. It is equipped with a comprehensive array of emission measurement capabilities.
Emission standards are dominant drivers of powertrain development. The latest chapters, US 2010 and Euro VI, have a great impact on vehicle design, development and calibration. Whereas earlier legislation concentrated on emissions of a new engine at standard ambient conditions, future legislation will increasingly focus on actual emissions (ISC, IUC, OCE) of a vehicle throughout its operational lifetime. Extensive testing under different loads and widely varying ambient conditions is common practice to ensure in-service robustness. Summer and winter trials are necessary but costly undertakings. The number and duration of these trials can be significantly reduced by using a climatic-altitude chamber. For example, by developing a precalibration and testing under extreme ambient conditions before going on an outdoor trial.
A summer or winter trial will then serve as a final confirmation. Where normally a new technology could take two or more summer trials before a release into the market, now only one outdoor trial may suffice for a confident release.