ORCID Identifier(s)

0000-0001-6535-9071

Graduation Semester and Year

2015

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering

Department

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

First Advisor

Dereje Agonafer

Abstract

Modern Information Technology (IT) equipment are typically assumed to operate in quiescent airflow conditions in an uncontained data center facility. In this study, the multi-scaled thermal management strategies are reconsidered at the IT chassis and rack level for a containment system. For an ideal containment configuration of airflow provisioning the entirety of conditioned air provided by the Computer Room Air Conditioning (CRAC) unit would flow through the IT equipment and return back to the CRAC. But in actuality a lack of interfaced airflow distribution exists between the amount of conditioned air provisioned to the rack and the volume capacity ingested by the IT equipment thereby decreasing the efficiency of the overall cooling system. This work evaluates the thermal performance of IT servers when operating in a representative cold aisle containment system. In this study, the impact of positive and negative static pressure differentials between the inlet and exhaust of a representative rack is experimentally studied. The effect of fan proximity in the chassis layout to variations in pressure differentials is assessed. This information can be helpful in optimizing the desired static pressure set points within the room and define coupled internal fan control strategies to achieve the most energy efficient use of cooling resources.

Keywords

Data center, Airflow management, Information technology servers, Dynamic airflow management

Disciplines

Aerospace Engineering | Engineering | Mechanical Engineering

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

Download

Share

COinS