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Computational Fluid Dynamics for data centre cooling optimisation

Tony Chan | July 24, 2009 | 0 Comments

It seems a little bit of an overkill to solve data centre cooling issues, but the graphic itself is worth a post. According to CFdesign, a number of companies have deployed its upfront CFD (computational fluid dynamics) software and its Consulting Services Team to analyst air flow and to optimise cooling in their data centres.

As the photo indicates, the software models the air flow within the data centre and helps companies eliminate wastage and optimise the effectiveness of their CRAC units.

“As companies move to higher density architectures, the heat loads increase significantly requiring higher watts per square foot to operate the center. Many companies think the solution is to add or upgrade computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units to mitigate heat dissipation, but these units are intense resource drains that increase operational costs instead of reducing them,” the company said.

“Using upfront CFD, air circulation throughout the data center and thermal management of electronic components can be simulated to understand how to best direct and leverage cool air flow. Other tools in the industry mostly focus on above floor air circulation, but upfront CFD can go beyond that to model air flow both above and subfloor along with optimizing the CRAC units to provide a complete picture and identify ideal placement of perforated tiles throughout the room. Additionally, thermal specs from the server racks in the room can be incorporated to determine additional ways to maintain ideal temperatures in critical areas of the room.

“The ability to simulate all aspects of flow and thermal dissipation within a single software environment helps companies to quickly identify the best way to optimize their data center design. As a result companies can significantly reduce overall energy waste, minimize the possibility of server failures, decrease lifetime equipment and facilities management costs, and drastically reduce cooling costs, which in the current economy is a necessary goal,” the company added.

The idea certainly makes sense, but seems wasted (pardon the pun) on the environment the company is suggesting – namely a traditional data centre set up where big CRACs cool large open rooms. As many who follow this blog knows, there are a host of technology advancements and techniques, such as hot aisle/cool aisle, rack-based cooling system, and so on, that add significant efficiencies by changing the environment and equipment itself – not just the air flow within a large open room.

Still, anyone building a new data centre might want to try using CFD to model the efficiency of their design. I wonder whether or not Yahoo’s new chicken-coop design has gone through this kind of study.

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