Session: 02-04 Building Envelope, Building Energy, and Data Centers

Paper Number: 106727

106727 - A Simulation Study of Factors Affecting Cooling Performance of a Fan Wall-Cooled Data Center 

In this paper, numerical simulation of airflow in high-density data center with fan wall is conducted to study the factors affecting the cooling performance of high-density data centers. The factors considered are air outlet layout, orifice plate setting, and closed cold aisle. The total heat load in the computer room is 470 kW, and the single frame is 7 kW. The results show that there is no significant difference between installing the orifice plate and not installing the orifice plate. When the porosity of the orifice plate is less than 40 %, the airflow uniformity after the orifice plate is obviously improved, but the airflow path is greatly blocked, resulting in the inlet temperature of the middle and rear cabinets exceeding the thermal safety range. The high porosity of orifice plate has little effect on improving refrigeration effect. Changing the layout of the vent is a measure that has a significant impact on airflow management. The vertical cold aisle arrangement of the vent can make the airflow path more reasonable. The addition of partially closed cold aisle greatly reduces the mixing of hot and cold air, and the utilization rate of outdoor low-temperature cooling can be improved by increasing the supply air temperature, thereby reducing carbon emissions and further moving towards a low-carbon data center.

Presenting Author: Tailian Chen Gonzaga University

Presenting Author Biography: Dr. Tailian Chen is a professor in the Mechanical Engineering at Gonzaga University. His research areas include thermal management and heat transfer enhancement.