Construction kit in five shipping containers

In a climate chamber, manufacturers can subject their products and systems to extreme weather conditions similar to those their products will experience anywhere in the world. This allows them to test prototypes under the most extreme climatic conditions in a controlled environment. This in turn enables companies to build sustainable products and installations that meet the most extreme specifications of their customers. This is easy for small products, but when it comes to energy transition, we are talking about very large machines, such as wind turbine drivetrains, which are challenging to move from the production site to a test environment. Sirris, together with engineers from ZF Wind Power and the help of Limburg-based Vos Technics, which specializes in industrial cooling techniques, spent a year and a half developing a mobile climate chamber.

“Until now, companies had to transport their products or equipment to our climate chamber in Antwerp to test them under extreme conditions. In certain cases – particularly for components weighing over 150 tons – this was an expensive operation and sometimes even impossible due to their size and weight. From now on, we can bring the climate chamber to these manufacturers. It fits into a large construction kit consisting of five shipping containers and can be assembled within a week. That’s ideal for testing large infrastructures for five to six weeks or longer. It allows manufacturers such as ZF Wind Power to test not only certain components, but also the entire drivetrain. And there is demand. Not only in Belgium, but also internationally, and for various sectors. Think of the robotics sector, for example,” says Pieter Jan Jordaens, energy transition specialist at Sirris.