Research, Development, and Testing of Weather Balloons inside a Clear Vacuum Chamber

A wonderful company (more like one of the best companies in the world) which is currently involved with the research, development, and testing of high-altitude weather balloons, had a need for a vacuum chamber capable of achieving about 100 micro Torr (Micron) of ultimate Pressure for their testing environment. Fortunately, acrylic vacuum chambers are the perfect choice when it comes to Low, Rough, and Medium Vacuum.

This horizontally placed, cylindrical, clear acrylic vacuum chamber is about 12 inches in diameter by about 50 inches long. It can be placed horizontally on a table top. The interior of this chamber is accessed by opening the door on the left side. The right wall is also removable.

The chamber is used for testing of weather balloons. Notice that the door on the left side is not latched or clamped. The reason for this is due to the risk of over pressurization. In the unlikely event of the weather balloon bursting during the test procedure, the contents of the balloon would expel into the vacuum chamber and rapidly increase pressure and over pressurize the vacuum chamber. A latched or clamped door would keep or contain the pressure and risk damaging the vacuum chamber.

This design allows for the chamber door to simply open if the pressure inside the chamber changed from negative to positive and quickly relieve any overpressure without the risk of damaging the vacuum chamber.

On the opposite side of the door, we provided a total of 4 x 1/2 NPT Ports (which are plugged of course), a dial vacuum gauge, and two 1/4-inch NPT Valves (one is the vacuum valve, the other is the venting valve). Additionally, the whole left wall can be removed by removing the 8 fasteners present.

One advantage of having a removable right wall is that our client can customize right wall and add any other vacuum components such as thermocouples, feedthroughs, power feedthroughs, even multipin or Sub-D connectors if they choose to do so. Another advantage is that this allows for multiple wall configuration plates that can be made specific to each of their experiment. Not to mention the ability to able to clean or remove anything stuck on the opposite wall of the door. Can you imagine the hassle having to clean it without the ability of wall removal? One would have to have a really long broom stick to reach that deep in there…

Contact Us if you are interested in having us build a custom vacuum chamber for you

Did you know that we carry a many more products?

Our clients prefer to work with us because we are Experts in Vacuum Science and Technology. What are you building? Take a look at the links below and discover some of the cool things we make.

Altitude Simulation Systems
Altitude simulation systems are devices that simulate a certain altitude equivalent by controlling the vacuum inside a vacuum chamber. Altitude is a function of absolute pressure, therefore if a certain pressure is accomplished inside a vacuum chamber, a specific altitude can be simulated from the set pressure. Altitude simulation systems can be configured to not only hold a certain pressure, a complete pressure vs time profile can be programmed to be run. Furthermore, pressure vs time recipes can be loaded and run based on test requirements.
Vacuum Controller Instruments
Vacuum Controller Instruments are devices that measure and control for vacuum inside a vacuum chamber. A vacuum controller consists of a vacuum gauge, control system, and an Human Machine Interface; options include vacuum pump relays and Vacuum valves. A vacuum Controller will enable you to store products at a specified vacuum level or run a vacuum vs. time profile.
Our Work: Vacuum Testing of Lithium Ion Batteries, Thin Film, Fuel Cells, Supercapacitors, and Nano materials
This vacuum chamber is a modification to our basic acrylic vacuum chamber 12 inch, removable lid model; except that our customer requested additional ports and electrical feed-through for testing of electrical equipment under vacuum. You know, I wish we would have asked them for more details on what they were doing with this chamber; their short and concise answer was that they were using our chamber to perform scientific work on the subjects of: lithium ion batteries, thin films, fuel cells, super-capacitors, and nano-materials testing in a vacuum environment.
Related Articles: Bubble Leak Testing using an Acrylic Vacuum Chamber
Bubble Leak Testing or Bubble Emission Testing is a procedure where leaks are visually detected and located through the emission of bubbles while the test specimen is submerged in water. In this article, we will talk about using an acrylic vacuum box as a leak detection device. We are also going to talk about the advantage, disadvantage, and the bubble leak emission test procedures.