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15 views

Maximize-Efficiency-of-Existing-Cooling-System-in-Data-Center-2019

Uploaded by

Fernando
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Industry Application Guide:

Maximize Efficiency of
Existing Cooling System
in Data Center

DECEMBER 2019
As the service life of a data center increases, more and more IT
equipment is usually added to run the business, and the
corresponding cooling conditions may not be able to meet existing
requirements. This will cause the ambient temperature of the data
center to rise rapidly, affecting IT Normal operation of the device.
Especially in traditional room-level cooling data centers, the
cooling capacity of air conditioners is often not 100% utilized.

How to maximize the performance of cooling system to protect


the normal operation of IT equipment, not only can better use
existing data Center, also can save the costs?

The key to improving the efficiency of the cooling system is to


increase the return air temperature of the air conditioner, so that all
the cold air flow is heated up by the IT equipment and then returned
to the air conditioner without air flow short circuit.

Check the existing cooling system.


After the existing cooling system has been used for a long time,
due to various factors, the cooling capacity may decrease. Factors
that may affect the cooling capacity should be checked and
repaired, such as dirty filters, insufficient refrigerant, and the
Accumulation of ash or scale, etc. Removing these adverse effects
will help restore the cooling capacity.

℃
Don't worry about proper temperature rise. Figure 1: ASHRAE environmental classes for data centers

For IT equipment, it’s not as fragile as people think. If the highest


temperature reading at the front of the rack is less than 27°C (81°F),
it’s within the optimal temperature range of ASHRAE TC 9.9
recommendation. Even if the intake air temperature is slightly
higher than 32°C (90°F), it still meets the A1 standard. Most IT
equipment can be safely operated at this temperature (the inlet air
temperature of most IT equipment can reach 35°C (95°F)). The
temperature at the rear of the cabinet is usually 10°C (50°F) higher
than the front of the cabinet. Even if the temperature reaches 40°C
(104°F), do not use a fan to cool the rear of the rack. Hot air is
mixed into the cold air channel and affects the cooling effect.

Install IT equipment properly.


Measure temperature at the top, middle, and bottom of the front of

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Industry Application Guide: Maximize Efficiency of Existing Cooling System in Data Center
Attom technology
racks. The top temperature of the rack is usually the hottest. If the
bottom of the rack is cold and has open rack space, you can try
rearranging the more powerful IT equipment near the bottom of the
rack (the coldest area).

Use windshields to isolate hot and cold air.


Be sure to use a blanking plate to block all unused open spaces at
the front of the rack. This will prevent hot air from recirculating from
the back of the rack to the front of the rack to create local hot spots.

Avoid cables from blocking the rack's return air.


If a lot of messy cables are used at the front or rear of the cabinet,
it is likely to increase the fan pressure and power of the IT Figure 2: Short circuit of airflow in the cabinet
equipment and cause the IT equipment to overheat, even if there
is sufficient cold air in front. You should consider using short power
cords and network cables, and arrange them in the cabinet to avoid
obstructing airflow.

Proper use of raised floors.


If you used the raised floor to supply air, you need to ensure that
the ventilation floor is properly distributed in the data center area.
Do not set the ventilation floor at the rear of the rack. For higher
power rack, you can increase the through-hole rate of the
ventilation floor at the front of the rack, or use Ventilation floor with
air-guiding function or fan; Seal all floor openings except the rack
air intake channel as much as possible to prevent waste of cold air.

Figure 3: Redundant floor openings

Watch for obstacles under the raised floor.


If the air is sent under the elevated floor, attention should be paid
to the cable trough or other obstacles under the floor. Obstacles
such as the cable trough under the elevated floor will significantly
affect the cold air flow and cause uneven distribution of cold air in
the data center. In a remote place, the cooling capacity is
insufficient and the temperature is too high. At this time, you should
try to remove the obstacles to make the cooling system air supply
smoother. In combination with temperature measurement, place
more IT equipment in areas with lower temperature (sufficient
cooling).

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Industry Application Guide: Maximize Efficiency of Existing Cooling System in Data Center
Attom technology
Reasonably plan the air inlet and air outlet of the duct
air supply system.
If there is an elevated duct air supply system in data center, ensure
that the cold air outlet is directly at the front of the rack and the
return duct is above the hot aisle. If the air vents and return air
vents in the data center are not positioned well, it will cause
disorder of the return air flow organization, reduce the cooling
efficiency and overheat. The key is to ensure that the hot air from
the back of the cabinet can return directly to the room air
conditioner without mixing with cold air. In fact, higher return air
temperature can improve the cooling efficiency and capacity of
cooling system.

Turn off idle load.


Data centers need to turn off lights when no one is working, which
can save about 3% of power and correspondingly reduce cooling
requirements by about 3%. In addition, in a data center that has
been running for many years, there are often some zombie servers
that are still running. This is a quite common situation. Finding and
closing it can save a lot of power and cooling requirements.

Use CFD software as an optimization guide.


In the case of a conditional, using CFD software to perform
simulation tests on the data center can accurately determine how
much cooling capacity remains in the data center, where is too cold
and overheating, where to add IT equipment, and optimize the data
center internal equipment layout.
Figure 4: CFD software application in data center

Summary
By improving the air circulation organization in the equipment room
and shutting down idle loads, the utilization rate of the cooling
system can be effectively increased by more than 10%. However,
when the heat load of the data center exceeds the capacity of the
cooling system, only adding the cooling system can solve the
problem Therefore, the relationship between heat load and cooling
capacity in the data center needs to be checked before
implementation.

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Industry Application Guide: Maximize Efficiency of Existing Cooling System in Data Center
Attom technology
About Attom technology

We design and deliver Prefabricated modular Micro Data Center


solutions.Together with solid experience of 16+ years engineering and
20+ years manufacturing, we integrate resources from industry to build
micro data center solutions that help simplify IT systems for the
distributed edge sites.
Web: https://attom.tech
Tel: +86 755 2320 7291

Copyright © 2019 Attom technology. All rights reserved.

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Industry Application Guide: Maximize Efficiency of Existing Cooling System in Data Center
Attom technology

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