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Phase
A phase defines the environmental conditions of the chamber for a period of time. Each phase has a
name multiple phases may have the same name. Optionally each phase may be logged independently
to the experiment log into its own CSV file at its own data collection rate. Each phase has a total time to
run. Once that time has completed the next phase in the experiment will be started. The user may
define each phase to generate a report upon completion. For each phase the user may define the
chamber temperature and humidity behavior independently. Each variable (temperature and humidity)
behavior during the phase is defined by a starting point, end point , increment and an update rate. Once
the phase is started the system will set the environmental conditions to the values in start, it will
increment the value at a rate specified by increment. Note the increment may be negative for
downward sloping behavior or may be set to zero to have the variable not change during the phase. The
increment will continue until the end value is reached or the total time for the phase has been
exceeded. This gives the user maximum flexibility. In the sample screen below the current phase ‘Ramp
Up Humidity’ is defined to keep the temperature at a constant 23° C and ramp humidity from 25% RH to
35% RH in 2% RH increments every 2 minutes. This will happen for 20 minutes since the phase run time
is set to 00:20:00.
Figure 10 Experiment and phase definition
