Gautam Gupta

ORCID Identifier(s)

0000-0003-0310-6145

Graduation Semester and Year

2018

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering

Department

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

First Advisor

Dereje Agonafer

Abstract

A data center is a centralized facility that we use for housing the computer systems and its related components such as high-end servers, redundant data connection and security controls. The next radical change in the thermal management of data centers is to shift from conventional cooling methods like air-cooling to direct liquid cooling (DLC) to deal with high thermal mass. The past few years have consistently seen wider adoption of direct liquid cooling because of its simplicity and high heat dissipation capacity. Passive single phase engineered fluid immersion cooling has several other benefits like better server performance, even temperature profile and higher rack densities. This report provides an overview of the considerations of using single-phase dielectric fluid to cool a server based on experiments conducted at extreme conditions in an environmental chamber. The server was placed in the environmental chamber ranging from extremely low temperatures at -20°C to 20°C and varying humidity for extended durations. Thermal overstress experiment was v performed on a fully immersed server and its cooling system components. This work explores the effects of low temperature on the performance of a server and other components like pump including flow rate drop and starting trouble under extreme climatic conditions. The possibility of connector seals observing reduced performance upon accelerated temperature cycling is addressed. Throttling limit for the CPU along with power draw over a range of different temperatures was recorded. Similar observations were recorded for pump. Dependence of pump performance on operating temperature determines the flow rate and operating temperature relationship. Pumping power consumption is directly related to the operating cost of a data center. This research can be expanded by performing similar experiments at elevated temperatures to establish an operating temperature envelope in order to get the optimum performance of a direct liquid cooled high-density server.

Keywords

Data center, Servers

Disciplines

Aerospace Engineering | Engineering | Mechanical Engineering

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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