CFD Modeling of an Air-Cooled Data Center
Ladda ner
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Master Thesis
Master Thesis
Program
Applied physics (MPAPP), MSc
Publicerad
2015
Författare
Wibron, Emelie
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
Fortlax is an air-cooled data center in Norrbotten. The potential of future investments in data centers is prosperous, but sustainability is an increasingly important factor. It is important to make sure that the data centers are sufficiently cooled while too much forced cooling leads to economical losses and a waste of energy. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a CFD model of a server room at Fortlax data center that accurately predicts the temperature and flow field. The goal is to develop the CFD model in order to evaluate different cooling systems and also improve the placement of the server racks. Most of the server racks are only half full at the moment, but the heat load is supposed to increase in the near future. Therefore, it has been assumed that all the server racks generate full heat load. The commercial CFD software ANSYS CFX 16.0 has been used to perform the simulations. The current cooling system with the current placement of the server racks resulted in some insufficiently cooled server racks. The performance of the cooling system was significantly improved when the hard-floor configuration was replaced by a raised-floor configuration. The design strategy based on hot/cold-aisles has become the standard when raised-floor configurations are used. However, the raised-floor configuration with parallel rows of server racks turned out to be the setup that performed best based on the performance metrics that were used to evaluate the results in this thesis.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Energi , Hållbar utveckling , Strömningsmekanik , Energy , Sustainable Development , Fluid mechanics