A vacuum chamber is a rigid enclosure from which air and other gases are removed by a vacuum pump. This results in a low pressure environment within the chamber, commonly referred to as a vacuum. A vacuum environment allows researchers to conduct physical experiments or to test mechanical devices which must operate in outer space (for example) or for processes such as vacuum drying or vacuum coating. Chambers are typically made of metals which may or may not shield applied external magnetic fields depending on wall thickness, frequency, resistivity, and permeability of the material used. Only some materials are suitable for vacuum use.
Chambers often have multiple ports, covered with vacuum flanges, to allow instruments or windows to be installed in the walls of the chamber. In low to medium-vacuum applications, these are sealed with elastomer o-rings. In higher vacuum applications, the flanges have hardened steel knives welded onto them, which cut into a copper gasket when the flange is bolted on.
A type of vacuum chamber frequently used in the field of spacecraft engineering is a thermal vacuum chamber, which provides a thermal environment representing what a spacecraft would experience in space.
Read more about Vacuum Chamber: Vacuum Chamber Materials, Vacuum Degassing, Vacuum Drying
Famous quotes containing the words vacuum and/or chamber:
“Teenagers who are never required to vacuum are living in one.”
—Fred G. Gosman (20th century)
“My weary limbs are scarcely stretched for repose, before red dawn peeps into my chamber window, and the birds in the whispering leaves over the roof, apprise me by their sweetest notes that another day of toil awaits me. I arise, the harness is hastily adjusted and once more I step upon the tread-mill.”
—“E. B.,” U.S. farmer. As quoted in Feminine Ingenuity, by Anne L. MacDonald (1992)