Environmental Chambers
Environmental chambers replicate environmental conditions for engineering tests. Environmental chambers can control factors like temperature, pressure, and humidity. These structures are an important part of quality control for products, as they can be used to identify potential flaws and weaknesses in engineering prototypes.
Environmental chambers employ two different categories of tests, climatic and mechanical. Climatic tests assess the product's response to certain environmental conditions such as temperature and precipitation. Mechanical tests, in comparison, evaluate the effects of other conditions, like vibration and shock.
Various kinds of environmental chambers are used for a variety of applications. One of the most interesting uses of environmental chambers is with astronauts. NASA uses hypobaric chambers to simulate the effects of high altitude, specifically low oxygen and low air pressure environments, on their astronauts.