Optimization of Data Center Room Layout to Minimize Rack Inlet Air Temperature

Author(s):  
Siddharth Bhopte ◽  
Dereje Agonafer ◽  
Roger Schmidt ◽  
Bahgat Sammakia

In a typical raised floor data center with alternating hot and cold aisles, air enters the front of each rack over the entire height of the rack. Since the heat loads of data processing equipment continues to increase at a rapid rate, it is a challenge to maintain the temperature within the requirements as stated for all the racks within the data center. A facility manager has discretion in deciding the data center room layout, but a wrong decision will eventually lead to equipment failure. There are many complex decisions to be made early in the design as the data center evolves. Challenges occur such as optimizing the raised floor plenum, floor tile placement, minimizing the data center local hot spots etc. These adjustments in configuration affects rack inlet air temperatures which is one of the important key to effective thermal management. In this paper, a raised floor data center with 4.5 kW racks is considered. There are four rows of racks with alternating hot and cold aisle arrangement. Each row has six racks installed. Two CRAC units supply chilled air to the data center through the pressurized plenum. Effect of plenum depth, floor tile placement and ceiling height on the rack inlet air temperature is discussed. Plots will be presented over the defined range. Now a multi-variable approach to optimize data center room layout to minimize the rack inlet air temperature is proposed. Significant improvement over the initial model is shown by using multi-variable design optimization approach. The results of multi-variable design optimization are used to present guidelines for optimal data center performance.

2006 ◽  
Vol 128 (4) ◽  
pp. 380-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siddharth Bhopte ◽  
Dereje Agonafer ◽  
Roger Schmidt ◽  
Bahgat Sammakia

In a typical raised floor data center with alternating hot and cold aisles, air enters the front of each rack over the entire height of the rack. Since the heat loads of data processing equipment continue to increase at a rapid rate, it is a challenge to maintain the temperature of all the racks within the stated requirement. A facility manager has discretion in deciding the data center room layout, but a wrong decision will eventually lead to equipment failure. There are many complex decisions to be made early in the design as the data center evolves. Challenges occur such as optimizing the raised floor plenum, floor tile placement, minimizing the data center local hot spots, etc. These adjustments in configuration affect rack inlet air temperatures, which is one of the important keys to effective thermal management. In this paper, a raised floor data center with 12kW racks is considered. There are four rows of racks with alternating hot and cold aisle arrangement. Each row has six racks installed. Two air-conditioning units supply chilled air to the data center through the pressurized plenum. Effect of plenum depth, floor tile placement, and ceiling height on the rack inlet air temperature is discussed. Plots will be presented over the defined range. A multivariable approach to optimize data center room layout to minimize the rack inlet air temperature is proposed. Significant improvement over the initial model is shown by using a multivariable design optimization approach.


Author(s):  
Pramod Kumar ◽  
Vikneshan Sundaralingam ◽  
Yogendra Joshi ◽  
Michael K. Patterson ◽  
Robin Steinbrecher ◽  
...  

In this paper we experimentally investigate the effect of supply air temperature on rack cooling in a high density raised floor data center facility. A series of experiments are performed on a 42 U (1-U = 4.45 cm) rack populated with 1-U servers. Desired rack heat loads are achieved by managing the distribution of server compute load within the rack. During the present experiments, temperatures at various locations in the hot and cold aisle corresponding to the rack air inlet and outlet are recorded. The temperatures are measured using a grid consisting of 256 thermocouples. The temperature measurements are further complimented with the flow field at the rack inlet. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) technique is used to capture the flow field at the rack inlet. The temperature maps in concert with the PIV flow field help in quantifying the rack cooling effectiveness. The temperature and flow measurements are measured for various cases by altering the supply air temperatures and perforated tile flow rates. The results are analyzed and compared with the ASHRARE recommended guidelines to arrive at the optimum supply air temperature. A perceptible change in the temperature and flow distribution is observed for the six cases investigated.


Author(s):  
Roger Schmidt ◽  
Madhusudan Iyengar

The heat dissipated by large servers and switching equipment is reaching levels that make it very difficult to cool these systems in data centers or telecommunications rooms. Some of the highest powered systems are dissipating upwards of 4000 watts/ft2(43,000 watts/m2) based on the equipment footprint. When systems dissipate this amount of heat and then are clustered together within a data center significant cooling challenges can result. This paper describes the thermal profile of 3 data center layouts (2 are of the same data center but different points in time with a different layout). Detailed measurements of all three were taken: electronic equipment power usage; perforated floor tile airflow; cable cutout airflow; computer room air conditioning (CRAC) airflow, temperatures and power usage; electronic equipment inlet air temperatures. Although the detailed measurements were recorded this paper will focus at the macro level results of the data center to see if some patterns present themselves that might be helpful for future guidelines of data center layout for optimized cooling. Specifically, areas of the data center where racks have similar inlet air temperatures are examined relative to the rack and CRAC unit layout.


Author(s):  
Roger Schmidt ◽  
Madhusudan Iyengar ◽  
Joe Caricari

With the ever increasing heat dissipated by IT equipment housed in data centers it is becoming more important to project the changes that can occur in the data center as the newer higher powered hardware is installed. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software that is available has improved over the years and some CFD software specific to data center thermal analysis has been developed. This has improved the timeliness of providing some quick analysis of the effects of new hardware into the data center. But it is critically important that this software provide a good report to the user of the effects of adding this new hardware. And it is the purpose of this paper to examine a large cluster installation and compare the CFD analysis with environmental measurements obtained from the same site. This paper shows measurements and CFD analysis of high powered racks as high as 27 kW clustered such that heat fluxes in some regions of the data center exceeded 700 Watts/ft2 (7535 W/m2). This paper describes the thermal profile of a high performance computing cluster located in an IBM data center and a comparison of that cluster modeled with CFD software. The high performance Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) cluster, developed and manufactured by IBM, is code named ASC Purple. It is the World’s 3rd fastest supercomputer [1], operating at a peak performance of 77.8 TFlop/s. ASC Purple, which employs IBM pSeries p575, Model 9118, contains more than 12,000 processors, 50 terabytes of memory, and 2 petabytes of globally accessible disk space. The cluster was first tested in the IBM development lab in Poughkeepsie, NY and then shipped to Lawrence Livermore National Labs in Livermore, California where it was installed to support our national security mission. Detailed measurements were taken in both data centers of electronic equipment power usage, perforated floor tile airflow, cable cutout airflow, computer room air conditioning (CRAC) airflow, and electronic equipment inlet air temperatures and were report in Schmidt [2], but only the IBM Poughkeepsie results will be reported here along with a comparison to CFD modeling results. In some areas of the Poughkeepsie data center there were regions that did exceed the equipment inlet air temperature specifications by a significant amount. These areas will be highlighted and reasons given on why these areas failed to meet the criteria. The modeling results by region showed trends that compared somewhat favorably but some rack thermal profiles deviated quite significantly from measurements.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-57
Author(s):  
S. N. Shumov

The spatial analysis of distribution and quantity of Hyphantria cunea Drury, 1973 across Ukraine since 1952 till 2016 regarding the values of annual absolute temperatures of ground air is performed using the Gis-technologies. The long-term pest dissemination data (Annual reports…, 1951–1985; Surveys of the distribution of quarantine pests ..., 1986–2017) and meteorological information (Meteorological Yearbooks of air temperature the surface layer of the atmosphere in Ukraine for the period 1951-2016; Branch State of the Hydrometeorological Service at the Central Geophysical Observatory of the Ministry for Emergencies) were used in the present research. The values of boundary negative temperatures of winter diapause of Hyphantria cunea, that unable the development of species’ subsequent generation, are received. Data analyses suggests almost complete elimination of winter diapausing individuals of White American Butterfly (especially pupae) under the air temperature of −32°С. Because of arising questions on the time of action of absolute minimal air temperatures, it is necessary to ascertain the boundary negative temperatures of winter diapause for White American Butterfly. It is also necessary to perform the more detailed research of a corresponding biological material with application to the freezing technics, giving temperature up to −50°С, with the subsequent analysis of the received results by the punched-analysis.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Oliveira ◽  
António Lopes ◽  
Ezequiel Correia ◽  
Samuel Niza ◽  
Amílcar Soares

Lisbon is a European Mediterranean city, greatly exposed to heatwaves (HW), according to recent trends and climate change prospects. Considering the Atlantic influence, air temperature observations from Lisbon’s mesoscale network are used to investigate the interactions between background weather and the urban thermal signal (UTS) in summer. Days are classified according to the prevailing regional wind direction, and hourly UTS is compared between HW and non-HW conditions. Northern-wind days predominate, revealing greater maximum air temperatures (up to 40 °C) and greater thermal amplitudes (approximately 10 °C), and account for 37 out of 49 HW days; southern-wind days have milder temperatures, and no HWs occur. Results show that the wind direction groups are significantly different. While southern-wind days have minor UTS variations, northern-wind days have a consistent UTS daily cycle: a diurnal urban cooling island (UCI) (often lower than –1.0 °C), a late afternoon peak urban heat island (UHI) (occasionally surpassing 4.0 °C), and a stable nocturnal UHI (1.5 °C median intensity). UHI/UCI intensities are not significantly different between HW and non-HW conditions, although the synoptic influence is noted. Results indicate that, in Lisbon, the UHI intensity does not increase during HW events, although it is significantly affected by wind. As such, local climate change adaptation strategies must be based on scenarios that account for the synergies between potential changes in regional air temperature and wind.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1008 ◽  
pp. 128-138
Author(s):  
Ahmed M. Salman ◽  
Ibrahim A. Ibrahim ◽  
Hamada M. Gad ◽  
Tharwat M. Farag

In the present study, the combustion characteristics of LPG gaseous fuel diffusion flame at elevated air temperatures were experimentally investigated. An experimental test rig was manufactured to examine a wide range of operating conditions. The investigated parameters are the air temperatures of 300, 350, 400, 450, and 500 K with constant percentage of nitrogen addition in combustion air stream of 5 % to give low oxygen concentration of 18.3 % by mass at constant air swirl number, air to fuel mass ratio, and thermal load of 1.5, 30, and 23 kW, respectively. The gaseous combustion characteristics were represented as axial and radial temperatures distributions, temperatures gradient, visible flame length and species concentrations. The results indicated that as the air temperature increased, the chemical reaction rate increased and flame volume decreased, the combustion time reduced leading to a reduction in flame length. The NO concentration reaches its maximum values near the location of the maximum centerline axial temperature. Increasing the combustion air temperature by 200 K, the NO consequently O2 concentrations are increased by about % 355 and 20 % respectively, while CO2 and CO concentrations are decreased by about % 21 and 99 % respectively, at the combustor end.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 478
Author(s):  
Hao Chen ◽  
Weikun Li ◽  
Weicheng Cui ◽  
Ping Yang ◽  
Linke Chen

Biomimetic robotic fish systems have attracted huge attention due to the advantages of flexibility and adaptability. They are typically complex systems that involve many disciplines. The design of robotic fish is a multi-objective multidisciplinary design optimization problem. However, the research on the design optimization of robotic fish is rare. In this paper, by combining an efficient multidisciplinary design optimization approach and a novel multi-objective optimization algorithm, a multi-objective multidisciplinary design optimization (MMDO) strategy named IDF-DMOEOA is proposed for the conceptual design of a three-joint robotic fish system. In the proposed IDF-DMOEOA strategy, the individual discipline feasible (IDF) approach is adopted. A novel multi-objective optimization algorithm, disruption-based multi-objective equilibrium optimization algorithm (DMOEOA), is utilized as the optimizer. The proposed MMDO strategy is first applied to the design optimization of the robotic fish system, and the robotic fish system is decomposed into four disciplines: hydrodynamics, propulsion, weight and equilibrium, and energy. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method is employed to predict the robotic fish’s hydrodynamics characteristics, and the backpropagation neural network is adopted as the surrogate model to reduce the CFD method’s computational expense. The optimization results indicate that the optimized robotic fish shows better performance than the initial design, proving the proposed IDF-DMOEOA strategy’s effectiveness.


Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 1377
Author(s):  
Weifang Shi ◽  
Nan Wang ◽  
Aixuan Xin ◽  
Linglan Liu ◽  
Jiaqi Hou ◽  
...  

Mitigating high air temperatures and heat waves is vital for decreasing air pollution and protecting public health. To improve understanding of microscale urban air temperature variation, this paper performed measurements of air temperature and relative humidity in a field of Wuhan City in the afternoon of hot summer days, and used path analysis and genetic support vector regression (SVR) to quantify the independent influences of land cover and humidity on air temperature variation. The path analysis shows that most effect of the land cover is mediated through relative humidity difference, more than four times as much as the direct effect, and that the direct effect of relative humidity difference is nearly six times that of land cover, even larger than the total effect of the land cover. The SVR simulation illustrates that land cover and relative humidity independently contribute 16.3% and 83.7%, on average, to the rise of the air temperature over the land without vegetation in the study site. An alternative strategy of increasing the humidity artificially is proposed to reduce high air temperatures in urban areas. The study would provide scientific support for the regulation of the microclimate and the mitigation of the high air temperature in urban areas.


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