The concept behind data center free air cooling is that a room with adequate temperature and humidity can provide a comfortable working environment for the computer equipment. Let's take a closer look.
Data Center Free Air Cooling Concept
Data centers are the nerve center of our digital world. They power the information superhighways that allow us to connect, do business, and explore the world around us. But as these digital highways grow in size and complexity, so too must the data centers responsible for their operation. Traditional air conditioning can't keep up with an ever-expanding network, so a new approach to cooling is needed.
The data center free air cooling concept is to have an oversized and underutilized free cooling effect. The basic idea is to use an external area with climate control and move the cold air into the data center. This saves money on a cooling system and helps the environment simultaneously.
The oversized free cooling can remove heat with a low-temperature difference between the hot and cold sides. To realize this concept, the hot side temperature shall be around 30 degrees centigrade, and the cold side temperature shall be approximately 15 degrees centigrade. A reduced temperature difference can reduce the power consumption of the air conditioner and save energy costs.
The premise of free air cooling is to circulate air throughout the data center and dissipate heat into the outside environment. This outdoor temperature will not be constant at all times of the year, so you need to have enough capacity to handle high temperatures in the summer and low temperatures in the winter.
If the temperature drops below freezing in your area, water pipes may freeze and burst, rendering your system unusable. To prevent this from happening, you should insulate any pipes or wires exposed to the outdoors.
When designing a data center for free air cooling, you should consider how your structure affects local climate conditions. For example, if you're building a multistory building in a hot climate, it's better to place a tall wall on the east side because this will reduce direct sunlight exposure on servers and cool them down faster. The same concept applies to wind protection: you want to build walls that block any strong winds from reaching your servers.
Data Center Free Air Cooling Best Practice
The best practice for this concept is to have multiple zones in the data center, each with its potential free cooling source. The zones should be wired separately so that if one zone is too cold or too hot, it can be cut off from the rest of the room.
Data center free air cooling best practices include:
1. Select suitable sites for free air-cooled data centers. A location in a rural area away from other buildings will be ideal for free air-cooled data centers. A spot near a river or lake is another great place for a free air-cooled data center because it can take advantage of the natural flow of cool water to cool the servers.
2. Selecting and installing the correct type of roofing system. Excellent roofing systems that reflect heat are ideal for a free air-cooled data center because they reduce energy costs by reducing the amount of heat absorbed into the building. Standard fantastic roofing systems include concrete, clay, slate, and metal roofs.
3. Adding thermal mass to store heat in cooler weather. This helps keep the temperature stable and ensures that the servers do not overheat during hot summer days or freezing winter nights.
Read more about: reducing data center CO2
Conclusion
The concept of free cooling has been around for some time, but in recent years it has gained new relevance as data centers have grown in size and number. Free cooling takes advantage of the fact that data centers draw a significant amount of their power from air conditioning systems and aims to lower this reliance on mechanical cooling.
The most basic free-air cooling technique is to install many cooling fans and arrange them so that air flows from one row of racks to another across the facility's ceiling. By designing the racks at several different heights, you can arrange the fans so that hot air from one row rises into a cold stream of air from another row above or below it. This method is sometimes used with other procedures like desiccant dehumidifiers and heat exchangers.
While free cooling isn't a replacement for mechanical cooling systems, it can help facilities eliminate some of their energy use and expand their capacity.
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