Author

FNU Akash

ORCID Identifier(s)

0000-0003-0449-6886

Graduation Semester and Year

2020

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering

Department

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

First Advisor

Dereje Agonafer

Second Advisor

Kamesh Subbarao

Abstract

A data center is a cluster of multiple servers that a company uses to store and process large amounts of data. Due to never-ending demands, the processor densities are increasing every day. A higher processor density would result in the servers heating up more than it would normally creating a need for an efficient cooling system. On an average a water-cooled system would consume up to 40% of the total power required by a data center. Studies are being conducted on improving the overall efficiency of the system by either improving the thermal properties of the system or by improving the pumping efficiency. This study explores a way of improving the efficiency by saving pumping power. Practically looking at the situation, not every server is going to be used at all times. The loads would vary depending on the process where one would need the computing power of the whole rack in which case the system would need to be cooled equally but a different process would only engage 2 servers out of the available ones in the rack. In this scenario these two racks would consume more power in turn dissipating more heat compared to the others. This gives us room to vary the flow rate and introduce dynamic cooling to save pumping power. This study concentrates on a control strategy using a flow control device that is used to vary the flow rate individually on different levels based on the temperature of the coolant. The variation of flow rates is directly going to be related to the savings in pumping power. Variations in temperature, pressure and flow rate is observed at different intervals and the setup is built with these parameters in focus. Two strategies are developed to observe the effect of dynamic cooling, pressure based and temperature based. The results of this experiment will prove the efficiency of dynamic cooling.

Keywords

Data center, Liquid cooling

Disciplines

Aerospace Engineering | Engineering | Mechanical Engineering

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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