Design and Thermal Environment Analysis of a Decentralized Cooling System with Surface-Mount Heat Pipe Exchangers on Servers in Data Centers

Abstract

This paper proposes a decentralized cooling system combined with a traditional computer room air conditioning unit and server-level heat pipe exchangers for thermal environment optimization in a data center. Two cooling strategies, with heat exchangers installed above and below the servers respectively, are proposed and compared with the original CRACs system in terms of thermal environment. The simulation results of the original data center model are in good agreement with the on-site measurement results, and thus its reliability can be validated. The results show that a decentralized cooling system can effectively improve the thermal environment in data centers. To obtain the highest cooling efficiency, altogether 18 cases, where heat pipe exchangers were installed at different locations and heights, are analyzed and compared. The results show that the thermal environment is optimal when heat pipe exchangers are installed 0.01 m below each server. The local hotspot temperature is reduced by 6.8 °C, and the temperature distribution of the rack is the most uniform, which can effectively reduce the heat accumulation in data centers.

Keywords

• data centers
• thermal environment
• local hotspot
• decentralized cooling system
• heat pipe exchanger