Data Room Know-How Stacks Up Fine
CASE STUDY
2 simple application changes resolve heating issues
and hot spots
The Challenge
A national industry association with headquarters in Kansas City was having temperature problems in their data room. The thermostats were reading much lower than the actual air temperature.
Maintaining correct temperature and humidity levels in a computer room or data center is critical to ensure uptime and system reliability.
So when Environmental Mechanical received the call from their long-time service customer, Account Sales Representative Corey Emmons immediately headed to the facility to access the situation.
While performing a thorough evaluation of the data room design, one of the first things he noticed was the overuse of perforated floor tiles in the room.
Perforated floor tiles are designed to deliver cooled air from the raised floor to cool the servers.
If the placement is not correct, the velocity of each tile is decreased and cool air will not reach servers on higher racks.
The Solution
Corey researched the designed output of each tile in cubic feet per minute (cfm) and evaluated the proper number and placement of the tiles to create a balanced and controlled flow of cool air.
During this same time, the facility manager also consulted with the engineers who had originally designed the installation. They suggested adding tonnage to the chiller, and questioned the tile solution.
Once the correct number of tiles were in place, however, thermal imaging --a tool that Environmental Mechanical routinely uses for data room temperature analysis-- showed temperature improvements.
Thermal imaging can help detect hot spots and cooling issues because the infrared technology is used to help “see” the radiation given off by objects: the hotter an object is, the more it radiates.
Corey also detected thatthe hot aisle return system was pulling the hot air across the cool air in the cool aisles, which canceled out any benefit that the cool air was providing.
Data rooms are set up in rows and stacks of servers. These rows create aisles and each aisle is either a hot aisle or a cool aisle depending on the position of the server racks. The backs of the servers put out a lot of heat, so those are the hot aisles.
The solution was to run hot aisle return air duct from the CRAC to directly above the hot aisles to keep the cool air cool, and the hot air circulating back through the floor and out the perforated floor tiles as cool air.
This was an effective method to keep the data room cool, without needing to add expensive equipment or tonnage to an already existing system.
RESULTS
With just these 2 application changes, the data room went from a temperature of over 80° to a legitimate reading of 71°.
Environmental Mechanical was able to achieve this without adding tonnage or rerouting the server racks.
“We have also developed a design to further reduce the temperature in this data room”, said Corey, “by redirecting the chill water piping so that it does not create air restrictions under the floor where the cold air is transferred to the perforated tiles and up to cool the servers”.
The 4-6 inch piping restricts air movement and creates an unbalanced supply of air throughout the room, resulting in some servers not receiving the correct amount of cool air although the thermometer is showing a cool temperature.
“Our goal is to partner with our customers and offer simple, effective and efficient solutions”, said Corey Emmons. “And this is an excellent example of providing a loyal customer with a cost-effective solution that saves them time and money”.