Energy Consumption and Stability Investigation of Constant Temperature and Humidity Test Chamber

Abstract

Temperature and humidity chambers are used to simulate many thermal-environmental conditions, as well as to observe the effects that a range of temperature and humidity have on a product or material at the manufacturing stage. The energy consumption and accuracy of these test chambers over the last decades have raised concerns for recent researchers. In this study, the energy consumption and stability of a temperature and humidity chamber was investigated under various operating and environmental conditions by adopting a variable speed compressor to the refrigeration unit. The accuracy of temperature and humidity was also investigated. It is found that, for a given surrounding environmental condition, as the dry bulb temperature conditions of the temperature and humidity chambers increased, the cooling capacity of the system increased while the refrigerating unit’s power decreased for all operating conditions. However, the total energy consumption of the test unit increased due to an increment in the electric heater output. In maintaining effective stability of temperature and humidity test chambers, it is observed that, varying the refrigeration unit capacity by adjusting compressor speed has the potential for reducing the temperature and relative humidity fluctuations within the chamber for a given operating condition. Adopting a variable speed compressor to the refrigerating unit, have the potential for reducing the energy consumption significantly according to increment of setting temperature of the chamber as well as ensuring system stability for temperature and humidity chambers.