A rheometer uses a removable integrated environmental control cartridge that includes at least one environmental control unit, at least one supply port operative to interact with the supply port for a chassis of the rheometer. It also includes at least one mechanical alignment interface that is operative to interact with the mechanical alignment interface of the chassis to align both the mobile part with respect to the fixed part and the chassis supply port with respect to the environmental control cartridge part. In another general aspect, a rheometer can use an environmental control cartridge interface operative to report an identity of the integrated environmental control cartridge to an environmental control cartridge identification interface of its chassis.