Industries That Rely on Temperature Chambers for Product Testing
Rubber
Rubber testing plays a vital role in sectors such as automotive, aerospace, and industrial manufacturing, where materials are subjected to intense environmental stresses. A key test for rubber materials is evaluating their performance and flexibility at low temperatures, particularly in cold climates or sub-zero storage conditions. One essential method is the temperature retraction (TR) test, which measures the elasticity and resilience of rubber when exposed to extreme cold. In this protocol, rubber is artificially stretched and then rapidly frozen using liquid nitrogen, after which its ability to retract and return to its original shape is precisely assessed.
Among the five rubber categories—general, high performance, oil resistant, high temperature, and low temperature—only three are suitable for extreme environmental conditions with significant temperature fluctuations, such as those encountered in medical devices, aerospace components, or weatherproofing applications.
In order to guarantee reliable performance and safety under severe temperature and humidity variations, rubber materials undergo a series of comprehensive environmental tests. While rubber compounds are typically durable and strong, extended exposure to rapidly changing atmospheric conditions can accelerate degradation, impact tensile strength, and reduce service life. As a result, testing in temperature chambers is essential for accurate material characterization and lifetime prediction, which directly informs product development and quality assurance.
Pharmaceutical
Within the pharmaceutical industry, maintaining product efficacy, stability, and safety under varying environmental conditions is paramount. Pharmaceutical products such as vaccines, biologics, and medications can suffer significant damage or potency loss if exposed to improper temperatures, leading to a degradation of their chemical, biochemical, or physical properties. This degradation can greatly reduce a drug's therapeutic effectiveness and even cause harmful side effects, resulting in medications that fail to perform as expected.
To establish the thermal limits and storage conditions that pharmaceuticals can tolerate, they undergo a stringent series of stability tests in temperature and humidity chambers. These comprehensive tests—often governed by regulatory protocols such as ICH (International Council for Harmonisation) guidelines—provide essential baseline data, storage recommendations, and critical warnings about heat or cold sensitivity. In specific cases, such as cold chain logistics for vaccines or insulin, it may be necessary to maintain an uninterrupted temperature-controlled supply chain throughout shipping, handling, and storage, monitored by temperature data loggers and electronic sensors.
Automotive
The automotive industry has seen rapid advances in vehicle electronics, materials, and propulsion components—all of which require extensive reliability and environmental testing under simulated road and climate scenarios. The rising demand for enhanced safety, advanced performance, fuel efficiency, emissions reductions, and increased durability has led to a surge in the use of complex electronic components and subsystems in both electric and internal combustion vehicles. Automotive electronics now encompass semiconductors, vehicle sensors, control modules, and an array of switches and interface controls, with modern vehicles incorporating up to fifty different sensors and electronic controls.
To ensure the long-term reliability and compliance of these sensitive components, they are subjected to rigorous automotive temperature cycling, thermal shock, and endurance testing in temperature chambers, with test temperature ranges spanning from -80°C to 225°C—or even higher. Testing can be executed using both benchtop environmental chambers for small-scale components and drive-in temperature chambers large enough to accommodate full vehicles or subassemblies, enabling simultaneous evaluation of multiple systems under extreme temperature and humidity conditions.
Larger automotive components—like lithium-ion batteries, engine parts, transmissions, and airbags—are exposed to intense temperature stressors to verify they will operate safely in both extreme hot and cold environments. Such tests are essential for meeting the demands of automotive industry standards such as SAE and ISO, as well as regulatory and OEM customer requirements.
- Outstanding temperature distribution creates uniform stress.
The temperature distribution performance is outstanding even during temperature variation, providing uniform and highly repeatable stress.
The optimum air flow and air velocity distribution are calculated by the simulation, minimizing the differences in stress caused by differences in specimen placement positions in the test space.
- New function controls test sample temperature variation rate.
Features a high-speed controller for specimen temperature control. This specimen temperature control is achieved by a variety of new technologies—the refrigeration capacity has been increased, the air-conditioning technology minimizes the temperature difference between the specimen and air, and uniform air velocity distribution minimizes the test sample temperature distribution.
- Complies with JEDEC standard (JESD22-A104F).
The Rapid-rate Thermal Cycle Chamber, that enables semiconductor package evaluations and solder junction evaluations in compliance with the JESD22-A104F standard, enables test sample temperature control at a rate of 15℃/minute (between -40 and +125°C). - Supports temperature control of test samples and air.
Uses two control methods, enabling thermal cycling tests with specimen temperature control of 15℃/minute, and air temperature control. Supports many different applications, ranging from standards compliance testing to screening.
