Mariner Systems Relocates Walk in Test Room

12 August 2009

Mariner Systems offer Type Approval testing specifically for marine equipment including climatic, vibration and EMC testing and when they needed to expand their testing capabilities they came to Design Environmental Ltd for assistance.

The requirement was for a "walk in" environmental chamber to conduct temperature (-25°C to +70°C) and humidity (20% to 95%RH between +20°C and +70°C) tests on marine pc equipment. The walk in room needed to be large enough to accommodate a number of 19" racking system allowing Mariner Systems to test full height systems and larger equipment.

Although the walk in room design brief was pretty straight forward for DEL there was an added twist, it had to be easily relocated at a later date. Mariner System's current facilities at Enterprise City in Spennymoor covered three separate small units and they were running out of working space. Due to Mariner Systems ever expanding business they were planning to relocate to a larger facility in 2009 but needed the extra test space that the walk in room offered straight away.

DEL's solution was to build the room on a rigid steel frame that was easily lifted by crane or large forklift truck with a remote air cooled plant in a weather proof enclosure being moved as a separate unit once de-gassed and disconnected.

In August 2008 the Mariner Systems room was delivered fully built and installed in one of the companies units at Enterprise City. It was put to work straight away and according to Stephen Lee (Test Lab Manager) the room has almost paid for itself within the first year of operation.

Over a three day period in July 09 Mariner Systems relocated to new premises covering 7,500Sq ft on the Aycliffe Industrial Park in Newton Aycliffe. The walk in room was degassed and the plant separated from the room, loaded onto the transport vehicle and re installed at the new building with the plant now mounted outside the building. The room is now fully operational again and if business continues to expand Mariner Systems hope to add another facility in the future.

DEL helps support local University

27 July 2009

Some years ago Design Environmental supplied a temperature controlled walk in room to the Sports & Exercise Science Department of Aberystwyth University.

Every year since the installation our company has offered a prize to the student who has used the facility in their studies and has submitted the best final dissertation.

This year we are pleased to announce that the award has been won by Rhiana Newport who after a summer break will now go on to study medicine at Swansea University.

Design Environmental also helped to sponsor the WISHES (Welsh Institute of Sport, Health and Exercise Science) conference held at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth on the 3rd of July 2009. It was attended by 90 academics from Universities across Wales. WISHES are supported by the Sports Council for Wales and are actively engaged in research in sport, health and exercise within Wales.

The SSR range of sports science rooms are now installed in many Universities in the UK and can offer adjustable extreme climatic conditions for the study of athletic performance and also provide special training facilities to improve athletic performance.

Webasto Roof Systems Invest in the Future

16 May 2009

In spite of the current economic crisis Webasto Roof Systems based in Minworth are looking to the future and expanding their research and development capabilities with the addition of a second Design Environmental large floor standing environmental test chamber and a drive in climatic test room with vibration.

Design Environmental are providing a full turnkey solution for the project by working with vibration system suppliers CentraTEQ and CVMSL to integrate the vibration generator and control systems into the drive in room.

The climatic room and vibration test system will be used for testing Webasto's next generation of sun roof systems, which will find there way onto new Jaguars, Land Rovers, Bentleys and maybe many other makes of vehicle which will hit showrooms in the future.

To make sure that Webasto's products remain at the top for reliability and longevity the climatic room allows control of both temperature and humidity so that environmental conditions found anywhere in the populated World can be simulated. In addition the vibration system inside the room is fitted with a large, custom designed, guided table in the vertical axis so it has the capability of testing roof sections from small or large passenger vehicles. The control systems of the climatic room and the vibration system are fully integrated with the vibration controller able to faithfully reproduce and analyse vibration from road or track recorded data.

One of the challenges of the facilities design is that occasionally Webasto will need to test a full size vehicle in the climatic room without vibration. To accommodate this requirement the vibration generator is housed in an insulated enclosure, which can be readily dismantled and stored away. Lift up sectional floor panels then allow the vibration generator to be moved to another location for stand alone use, leaving a clear space in the room for a family saloon or large SUV.

Design and manufacture of the facility will take place through the summer months with completion planned for September 2009.

New Multi purpose Test Room for University of Worcester

3 May 2009

Following initial discussions with Professor Jean Emberlin of NPARU (National Pollen & Aerobiological Research Unit) in January 2005, Design Environmental is very pleased to be completing the installation and commissioning of the large environmental test room at the heart of the universities impressive new building. Design Environmental not only provided technical expertise for the room but also advised architects BDP to make sure the building design could accommodate all the necessary plant and services.

The environmental room has been designed to accurately control temperature from -20°C to +50°C with humidity control from 5%RH to 95%RH and in addition it can simulate altitude. To provide the altitude simulation or hypoxic environment the plant includes the latest high flow technology hypoxic module supplied by The Altitude Centre.

High air flow rates of up to 1,500 litres per minute flush the environmental chamber with pre filtered air, which is enough to ensure Carbon dioxide build up from exercising subjects is flushed out of the chamber along with odours and other pollutants. The oxygen content delivered to the chamber is controlled anywhere between normal conditions of 20.9%, down as low as 11%, simulating an altitude of 5000 meters.

The equipment consists of an air compressor that delivers high pressure air to the hypoxic module. Inside the hypoxic module the high pressure air gets passed through a membrane constructed of special hollow fibres. The smaller Oxygen molecules are forced through the fibres leaving a higher concentration of Nitrogen or Hypoxic air, this air is then passed into the chamber where it is monitored by a special Oxygen sensor. Hypoxic air is delivered to the chamber rather that almost pure Nitrogen, this ensures safety is maintained and also provides greater mixing within the chamber with minimal fluctuations in Oxygen percentage.

All these parameter must be controlled accurately while the University staff conduct their trials on everything from feather dusters, to human beings, to full size vehicles. Because of the diverse testing requirements the air circulation within the room has to have controllable velocity and to be selectable from a turbulent air current to a laminar air current across the room.

In recent years DEL's reputation has grown amongst the Universities and many sports science or environmentally controlled rooms have been installed both in the UK and overseas. This experience and reputation made DEL an obvious choice as the supplier to the NPARU and prime contractors Leadbitter Construction.

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