Energy-efficient improvement approaches through numerical simulation and field measurement for a data center

Abstract

The power density of electronic equipment increased dramatically recently. Data center and data processing and telecommunication facilities are facing the exceptionally high sensible heat loads which result in a large amount of energy consumption. In this study, a numerical simulation using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was conducted to investigate the influence of alternative approaches to avoid bypassing and recirculation for air distribution in a full-scale data center. Field measurements were extensively conducted to validate the simulation results. Various performance indexes were adopted to enhance the evaluation of the thermal performance of the data center. The simulation results revealed that the practice with hot aisle enclosure and the installation of blocking panels for the unoccupied racks can provide satisfactory airflow distribution and thermal management under low load conditions. The return temperature index (RTI) can be improved by 3% through CFD simulation through installation of the blank panels, which reveals the reduction of recirculation airflow. The return heat index (RHI) increases by 8%, which presents a reduction of bypass airflow. A practical experiment using physical air curtains was conducted to enclose the hot aisle in the data center, which also reveals an 8% improvement for bypass airflow. Higher cooling performance can be achieved via reduction of recirculation and bypass airflow in the data center. Through the simulation of different improvement approaches in the data center, the optimum practice for cooling airflow arrangement can be identified accordingly.