On Economic Cooling of Contained Server Racks using an Indirect Adiabatic Air Handler

• We study the economic operation of a free-cooling setup in which an Indirect Adiabatic Air Handler (IAAH) recovers heat from an array of server racks placed in a contained aisle. For this setting we propose two different control policies: in the first approach, the airflow supply rate to the racks is maintained constant while only the process- side operations of the IAAH are optimized. In the second approach, also the room-side rate is updated adaptively. Building on calibrated models of the IAAH and the servers, we design experimental trials considering different outdoor temperatures and humidity conditions as well as varying computational workloads. The in silico analysis contributes actionable insights on the optimal thermal and cost operations of the system.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Reglerteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Control Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Data center thermal models

Indirect adiabatic cooling

Server thermal models

Energy efficient cooling

Reglerteknik

Control Engineering

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)