Aggregation of small networking hardware has led to an ever increasing power density in data centres. The energy consumption of IT systems is continuing to rise substantially owing to the demands of electronic information and storage requirements. Energy consumption of data centres can be severely and unnecessarily high due to inadequate localised cooling and densely packed rack layouts. However, as heat dissipation in data centres rises by orders of magnitude, inefficiencies such as air recirculation causing hot spots, leading to flow short-circuiting will have a significant impact on the thermal manageability and energy efficiency of the cooling infrastructure. Therefore, the thermal management of high-powered electronic components is a significant challenge for cooling of data centres. In this project, an operational data centre has been studied. Field measurements of temperature have been performed. Numerical analysis of flow and temperature fields is conducted in order to evaluate the thermal behaviour of the data centre. A number of undesirable hot spots have been identified. To rectify the problem, a few practical design solutions to improve the cooling effectiveness have been proposed and examined to ensure a reduced air-conditioning power requirement. Therefore, a better understanding of the cooling issues and the respective proposed solutions can lead to an improved design for future data centres.
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ASME 2010 10th Biennial Conference on Engineering Systems Design and Analysis
July 12–14, 2010
Istanbul, Turkey
Conference Sponsors:
- International
ISBN:
978-0-7918-4915-6
PROCEEDINGS PAPER
Addressing Thermal Challenges in Design of Data Centres
Babak Fakhim,
Babak Fakhim
The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
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Srinarayana Nagarathinam,
Srinarayana Nagarathinam
The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
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Simon Wong,
Simon Wong
The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
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Masud Behnia,
Masud Behnia
The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
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Steve Armfield
Steve Armfield
The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
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Babak Fakhim
The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Srinarayana Nagarathinam
The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Simon Wong
The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Masud Behnia
The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Steve Armfield
The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Paper No:
ESDA2010-24690, pp. 219-228; 10 pages
Published Online:
December 28, 2010
Citation
Fakhim, B, Nagarathinam, S, Wong, S, Behnia, M, & Armfield, S. "Addressing Thermal Challenges in Design of Data Centres." Proceedings of the ASME 2010 10th Biennial Conference on Engineering Systems Design and Analysis. ASME 2010 10th Biennial Conference on Engineering Systems Design and Analysis, Volume 1. Istanbul, Turkey. July 12–14, 2010. pp. 219-228. ASME. https://doi.org/10.1115/ESDA2010-24690
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