Design of Simulated Server Racks for Data Center Research

Conducting experiments on real high-density computer servers can be an expensive and risky task due to the risks associated with unintended inlet temperatures that exceed the server’s red-line temperature limit. Presented herein is the development of the simulated chassis that mimic real computer servers. Briefly, twelve high-power simulated chassis were designed and built to accurately simulate the actual operating conditions of a real computer chassis in a data center. Each simulated chassis is designed to have approximately 300 Pa pressure drop at a flow rate of 600 cfm to represent a real IBM server chassis. Additionally, the simulated chassis are designed to match the thermal mass of a real server. Eight of the simulated chassis were designed to have constant speed fans and variable heating power while the remaining four chassis were designed to have variable speed fans and variable heating power. Further discussions about the design phase of the simulated chassis are the substantial part of this paper. Underlining the challenges and safety issues with high-power chassis, guidelines for designing and constructing a chassis that simulates the real environment of a typical data center are presented.