Thermodynamic analysis of hybrid cooling system integrated with waste heat reusing and peak load shifting for data center

2019 ◽  
Vol 183 ◽  
pp. 427-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hua Chen ◽  
Yu-hang Peng ◽  
Yan-ling Wang
Author(s):  
Seungho Mok ◽  
Yogendra K. Joshi ◽  
Satish Kumar ◽  
Ronald R. Hutchins

This study focuses on developing computational models for hybrid or liquid cooled data centers that may reutilize waste heat. A data center with 17 fully populated racks with IBM LS20 blade servers, which consumes 408 kW at the maximum load, is considered. The hybrid cooling system uses a liquid to remove the heat produced by high power components, while the remaining low power components are cooled by air. The paper presents three hybrid cooling scenarios. For the first two cases, air is cooled by direct expansion (DX) cooling system with air-side economizer. Unlike the cooling air, two different approaches for cooling water are investigated: air-cooled chiller and ground water through liquid-to-liquid heat exchanger. Waste heat re-use for pre-heating building water in co-located facilities is also investigated for the second scenario. In addition to the hybrid cooling models, a fully liquid cooling system is modeled as the third scenario for comparison with hybrid cooling systems. By linking the computational models, power usage effectiveness (PUE) for all scenarios can be calculated for selected geographical locations and data center parameters. The paper also presents detailed analyses of the cooling components considered and comparisons of the PUE results.


Author(s):  
Tianyi Gao ◽  
James Geer ◽  
Bahgat G. Sammakia ◽  
Russell Tipton ◽  
Mark Seymour

Cooling power constitutes a large portion of the total electrical power consumption in data centers. Approximately 25%∼40% of the electricity used within a production data center is consumed by the cooling system. Improving the cooling energy efficiency has attracted a great deal of research attention. Many strategies have been proposed for cutting the data center energy costs. One of the effective strategies for increasing the cooling efficiency is using dynamic thermal management. Another effective strategy is placing cooling devices (heat exchangers) closer to the source of heat. This is the basic design principle of many hybrid cooling systems and liquid cooling systems for data centers. Dynamic thermal management of data centers is a huge challenge, due to the fact that data centers are operated under complex dynamic conditions, even during normal operating conditions. In addition, hybrid cooling systems for data centers introduce additional localized cooling devices, such as in row cooling units and overhead coolers, which significantly increase the complexity of dynamic thermal management. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to characterize the dynamic responses of data centers under variations from different cooling units, such as cooling air flow rate variations. In this study, a detailed computational analysis of an in row cooler based hybrid cooled data center is conducted using a commercially available computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code. A representative CFD model for a raised floor data center with cold aisle-hot aisle arrangement fashion is developed. The hybrid cooling system is designed using perimeter CRAH units and localized in row cooling units. The CRAH unit supplies centralized cooling air to the under floor plenum, and the cooling air enters the cold aisle through perforated tiles. The in row cooling unit is located on the raised floor between the server racks. It supplies the cooling air directly to the cold aisle, and intakes hot air from the back of the racks (hot aisle). Therefore, two different cooling air sources are supplied to the cold aisle, but the ways they are delivered to the cold aisle are different. Several modeling cases are designed to study the transient effects of variations in the flow rates of the two cooling air sources. The server power and the cooling air flow variation combination scenarios are also modeled and studied. The detailed impacts of each modeling case on the rack inlet air temperature and cold aisle air flow distribution are studied. The results presented in this work provide an understanding of the effects of air flow variations on the thermal performance of data centers. The results and corresponding analysis is used for improving the running efficiency of this type of raised floor hybrid data centers using CRAH and IRC units.


Author(s):  
David Okposio ◽  
A. G. Agwu Nnanna ◽  
Harvey Abramowitz

Abstract The cooling effect of evaporative cooling systems is well documented in literature. Evaporative cooling however introduces humidity into the cooled space, which is unsuitable for data centers. Desiccants (liquid, solid or composites) adsorb moisture from the cooled air to control humidity and is regenerated using waste heat from the data center. This work is an experimental and theoretical investigation of the use of desiccant assisted evaporative cooling for data center cooling according to ASHRAE thermal guideline TC 9.9 . The thickness of the cooling pads is varied with specific surface area, velocity of air through the pad measured, the product of the air velocity and surface area yields the volumetric flowrate of the air, the water flow rate varied as well. The configuration is such that the rotary desiccant wheel (impregnated with silica gel) comes after the evaporative cooler. A novel water recovery system using the Peltier effect is proposed to recover moisture from the return air stream thereby optimizing the water consumption of evaporative cooling technology and providing suitable air quality for data center cooling.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (17) ◽  
pp. 4378
Author(s):  
Anastasiia Grishina ◽  
Marta Chinnici ◽  
Ah-Lian Kor ◽  
Eric Rondeau ◽  
Jean-Philippe Georges

The energy efficiency of Data Center (DC) operations heavily relies on a DC ambient temperature as well as its IT and cooling systems performance. A reliable and efficient cooling system is necessary to produce a persistent flow of cold air to cool servers that are subjected to constantly increasing computational load due to the advent of smart cloud-based applications. Consequently, the increased demand for computing power will inadvertently increase server waste heat creation in data centers. To improve a DC thermal profile which could undeniably influence energy efficiency and reliability of IT equipment, it is imperative to explore the thermal characteristics analysis of an IT room. This work encompasses the employment of an unsupervised machine learning technique for uncovering weaknesses of a DC cooling system based on real DC monitoring thermal data. The findings of the analysis result in the identification of areas for thermal management and cooling improvement that further feeds into DC recommendations. With the aim to identify overheated zones in a DC IT room and corresponding servers, we applied analyzed thermal characteristics of the IT room. Experimental dataset includes measurements of ambient air temperature in the hot aisle of the IT room in ENEA Portici research center hosting the CRESCO6 computing cluster. We use machine learning clustering techniques to identify overheated locations and categorize computing nodes based on surrounding air temperature ranges abstracted from the data. This work employs the principles and approaches replicable for the analysis of thermal characteristics of any DC, thereby fostering transferability. This paper demonstrates how best practices and guidelines could be applied for thermal analysis and profiling of a commercial DC based on real thermal monitoring data.


Author(s):  
Tianyi Gao ◽  
Emad Samadiani ◽  
Roger Schmidt ◽  
Bahgat Sammakia

Thermal management of high power data centers poses challenges due to the high operational cost which is made worse due to the many inefficiencies that arise in them. Additional challenges arise due to the dynamic behaviors that occur during normal operation, and also during emergencies such as power outages or failure of some or all of the cooling equipment. Water and hybrid air plus water cooled data centers are an alternate cooling solution combining liquid cooling systems, such as rear door heat exchangers located within the racks themselves, in addition to the traditional raised floor cold aisle air cooling system. Such a solution may be used when some of the equipment in a data center is upgraded to higher end and higher power equipment which may not be manageable with the existing air cooling system. For a data center with a hybrid cooling system, the cold air supply and the cold water supply should increase in case of an emergency, such as a CRAC (Computer Room Air Conditioner) units’ failure. In this paper, a detailed computational study is conducted to investigate the dynamic response of the impact of a CRAC failure on both water side and air side in a representative hybrid cooling room. The room studied is an air cooled data center using the common cold aisle approach, with rear door heat exchangers installed on all of the racks. CRAC failure is investigated in a hybrid cooling room. The variation and fluctuation in an average rack inlet temperature, and inlet temperatures at different detail locations are presented in plots, showing the dynamic performance of a hybrid cooling data center subjected to the different CRAC failure scenarios. Different response time studies are also presented in this paper.


Author(s):  
Tianyi Gao ◽  
Emad Samadiani ◽  
Bahgat Sammakia ◽  
Roger Schmidt

Data centers consume a considerable amount of energy which is estimated to be about 2 percent of the total electrical energy consumed in the US, and their power consumption continues to increase every year. It is also estimated that roughly 30–40 percent of the total energy used in a data center is due to the thermal management systems. So, there is a strong need for better cooling methods which could improve the cooling capacity and also reduce energy consumption for high density data centers. In this regard, liquid cooling systems have been utilized to deal with demanding cooling and energy efficiency requirements in high density data centers. In this paper, a hybrid cooling system in data centers is investigated. In addition to traditional raised floor, cold aisle-hot aisle configuration, a liquid-air hybrid cooling system consisting of rear door heat exchangers attached to the back of racks is considered. The room is analyzed numerically using two CFD based simulation approaches for modeling rear door heat exchangers that are introduced in this study. The presented model is used in the second section of the paper to compare the hybrid cooling system with traditional air cooling systems. Several case studies are taken into account including the power increases in the racks and CRAC unit failure scenarios. A comparison is made between the hybrid cooling room and a purely air cooled room based on the rack inlet temperatures. Also in this study, total energy consumption by the cooling equipment in both air-cooled and hybrid data centers are modeled and compared with each other for different scenarios. The results show that under some circumstances the hybrid cooling could be an alternative to meet the ASHRAE recommended inlet air temperatures, while at the same time it reduces the cooling energy consumption in high density data centers.


2019 ◽  
pp. 16-31
Author(s):  
Jani DB

The solid desiccant based dehumidifier used in conjunction with the conventional HVAC combines the dehumidification of solid desiccant system and with the cooling capacity of the conventional air conditioning system. This hybrid cooling system provides thermal comfort to the occupants of the conditioned space. The hybrid systems main appeal lies in the fact that, it consumes much lesser high grade electrical energy as compared to the dedicated standalone traditional air conditioning systems. The electrical energy usage is possible still lower by use of primary energy sources for to supply the thermal energy needed for the desiccant regeneration. For this purpose freely available renewable solar energy or industrial waste heat can also be used for the regeneration heat source. Sometimes it is also possible to provide condenser waste heat for the part of desiccant reactivation heat supply may increase the overall performance of the system. It was also found that this cooling system with use of air to air waste heat recovery wheel performed better than without it in terms of dehumidification as well as cooling performance. The present study report important literature survey on the dehumidification potentials of desiccant integrated hybrid cooling system operating in hot and humid climates. Keywords: Hybrid air-conditioning; Rotary desiccant dehumidifier; Heat recovery wheel; Regeneration heat; Renewable solar energy; Waste heat


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