Raised Floor Computer Data Center: Effect on Rack Inlet Temperatures When Adjacent Racks Are Removed

This paper focuses on the effect on inlet rack air temperatures when adjacent racks are removed. Only the above floor (raised floor) flow and temperature distributions were analyzed for various air flowrates exhausting from the perforated tiles and the rack. A Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) model was generated for the room with electronic equipment installed on a raised floor with particular focus on the effects on rack inlet temperatures of these high powered racks. The baseline case was with forty racks of data processing (DP) equipment arranged in rows in a data center cooled by chilled air exhausting from perforated floor tiles. The chilled air was provided by four A/C units placed inside a room 12.1 m wide × 13.4 m long. Since the arrangement of the racks in the data center was symmetric only one-half of the data center was modeled. To see the effect of missing racks adjacent to high powered racks various configurations were analyzed. The numerical modeling was performed using a commercially available finite control volume computer code called Flotherm (Trademark of Flomerics, Inc.). The flow was modeled using the k-e turbulence model. Results are displayed to provide some guidance on the design and layout of a data center.