Abstract:
An increasing number of companies and organisations have
started to outsource their data storage. Although the potential of
future investments in data centers is prosperous, sustainability is
an increasingly important factor. It is important to make sure that
the server racks in data centers are sufficiently cooled whereas
too much forced cooling leads to economical losses and a waste
of energy. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is an excellent
tool to analyze the flow field in data centers. This work aims to
examine the performance of the cooling system in a data center
using ANSYS CFX. A hard floor configuration is compared to a
raised floor configuration. When a raised floor configuration is
used, the cold air is supplied into an under-floor space and enters
the room through perforated tiles in the floor, located in front of
the server racks. The flow inside the main components and the
under-floor space is not included in the simulations. Boundary
conditions are applied to the sides where the flow goes out of or
into the components. The cooling system is evaluated based on a
combination of two different performance metrics. Results show
that the performance of the cooling system is significantly
improved when the hard floor configuration is replaced by a
raised floor configuration. The flow field of the air differs in the
two cases. It is considered to be improved when the raised floor
configuration is used as a result of reduced hot air recirculation
around the server racks.
Description:
Papers presented to the 12th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Costa de Sol, Spain on 11-13 July 2016.
