Fastest way to drop temperature


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Old 11-22-17, 12:01 PM
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Fastest way to drop temperature

I am working on a home project. Basically, I'd like to design a six foot pod, where a person can walk into and then with a push of a button, the temperature in the pod drops rapidly in order to "shock" the person. The idea is to get the same effect as when jumping into a cold shower, but without getting wet. Any thoughts on a way to get this done?
 
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Old 11-22-17, 12:11 PM
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Welcome to the forums.

In commercial kitchens we wire blast chillers. They are used for dropping the temperature of the food rapidly to reduce spoilage. They are basically high power cooling units and they come with a high price tag.

Do you have a budget you are working with ?
Are you going to use this year round ?

You'd need to have an outside condensor that would need to be designed for the climate.
 
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Old 11-22-17, 12:13 PM
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Rapidly cooling a pod or chamber will be difficult/expensive. It would be much cheaper and easier to go into a chamber that is already cold like walking into a blast freezer.
 
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Old 11-22-17, 12:39 PM
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Making a room which is considerably colder than those around it is reasonably achievable. Making the temperature drop very quickly is going to be expensive.
 
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Old 11-23-17, 12:57 AM
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WhisperKOOL Products

Wine rooms usually run between 55 and 58 degrees.
 
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Old 11-24-17, 05:19 AM
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I agree with the ideas already discussed.
In order to achieve the effect you mention you would need a great deal of cooling power to lower the temperature.
You also would need an enclosed space in order for the air temperature to be circulated, either through a blower style coil or a gravity plate.
If budget is not a concern it could be done.

Is this part of a planned Halloween display or for a séance?
 
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Old 11-24-17, 11:52 AM
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I don't know how "shocking" you'd need this to be, but I've had jobs where I routinely would spend a handful of minutes in a 0°F walk-in freezer in shirt sleeves with no "shock" and no debilitating effects. The water in a cold shower probably is no less than 50°F but can cause a near instantaneous physiological response. Water has 24x the thermal conductivity of air and ~3200x its specific heat capacitance, so air would have to be much, much colder than water to cause heat to leave the body as rapidly.

And it's not just the difference in temperature, it's the suddenness of the change. Jumping into an outdoor swimming pool in January probably will cause the characteristic involuntary gasping, but wading in from the shallow end, even going from knees deep to chin deep in five seconds, probably will not (except maybe at that instant when your wedding tackle first makes contact with the water). So the difference in a fraction of a second versus even two or three seconds is enough to lose the effect.

The only (D-I-Y) way I can figure to match the 'suddenness' of a plunge in cold water is to have a "pre-chilling" pod of equal size standing atop the "chilling" pod with a trap door in its bottom. Chill the air in the pre-chill pod to about 40 below, then enter the chill pod and press the button to spring the trap door. Being as it's mode dense, the cold air will fall to the bottom. But it's also very low mass and there will be some resistance between the two air masses as they pass, so it still won't be instantaneous. But that's cold enough it probably will cause frost and/or fog as they pass, and maybe snow, too.
 
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Old 11-24-17, 05:16 PM
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Running out of a sauna and hitting -30f air is invigorating. Jumping through a hole in the ice is beyond comparison. So, I would have to say that there is no cold air chamber that can truly replicate the heart attack you get by jumping into icy water. But, a blast of really cold air can be refreshing and invigorating.
 
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Old 11-24-17, 06:21 PM
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Eh, basically, you need an expired CO2 fire extinguisher.
 
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Old 11-25-17, 04:01 AM
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I thought about that initially but the OP mentioned a small enclosed space. We don't want people suffocating.
 
 

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