Impact of Fan Airflow of IT Equipment on Thermal Environment and Energy Consumption of a Data Center

Naoki Futawatari, Yosuke Udagawa, Taro Mori and Hirofumi Hayama
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Naoki Futawatari: NTT FACILITIES, INC., Minato-ku, Tokyo 1080023, Japan
Yosuke Udagawa: NTT FACILITIES, INC., Minato-ku, Tokyo 1080023, Japan
Taro Mori: Faculty of Engineering, Hokkaido University, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 0608628, Japan
Hirofumi Hayama: Faculty of Engineering, Hokkaido University, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 0608628, Japan

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 23, 1-27

Abstract: Energy-saving in regard to heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) in data centers is strongly required. Therefore, to improve the operating efficiency of the cooling equipment and extend the usage time of the economizer used for cooling information-technology equipment (ITE) in a data center, it is often the case that a high air-supply temperature within the range in which the ITE can be sufficiently cooled is selected. In the meantime, it is known that when the ambient temperature of the ITE rises, the speed of the built-in cooling fan increases. Acceleration of the built-in fan is thought to affect the cooling performance and energy consumption of the data center. Therefore, a method for predicting the temperature of a data center—which simply correlates supply-air temperature with ITE inlet temperature by utilizing existing indicators, such as air-segregation efficiency (ASE)—is proposed in this study. Moreover, a method for optimizing the total energy consumption of a data center is proposed. According to the prediction results obtained under the assumption of certain computer-room air-conditioning (CRAC) conditions, by lowering the ITE inlet temperature from 27 °C to 18 °C, the total energy consumption of the machine room is reduced by about 10%.

Keywords: data center; HVAC; thermal management; ITE fan speed; energy consumption; optimization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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