SBIR Phase I: Mineral oil cooling for energy and cost efficient data centers

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目提出了为计算机服务器开发高性能矿物油浸没冷却系统。 虽然CPU（中央处理器）超频有可能将现有服务器的输出增加高达30%，但它也会以非线性方式增加小空间中产生的热量，可能会影响服务器的可靠性。 低效的冷却是数据中心能耗的关键驱动因素，最近从美国电力的1%上升到预计的3%。 矿物油比空气更好和散热，提供更好的冷却性能，允许计算机服务器超频，同时减少所需的冷却能量。拟议的第一阶段研究目标是：（i）设计和安装专门用于高性能冷却的冷却系统;（ii）调查和实施超频服务器的最佳方法;（iii）记录超频系统在CPU时钟速度范围内的服务器性能和冷却要求;（iv）记录和改进系统易用性和人体工程学。 预期的技术成果是量化用于超频服务器的矿物油浸入式冷却系统的性能、成本和能源效益。该项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力来自（a）增加服务器处理能力，同时（B）降低能源使用和（c）降低计算机数据中心的建设成本。 对于计算量大的研究机构来说，超频提供了以更少的资源解决更多社会研究需求的潜力，因为计算机服务器将比以前执行更多的计算。 此外，降低美国电力需求增量的主要贡献者的能源将大大有利于环境。 最后，随着冷却能源的减少，数据中心的扩建成本也将大大降低，数据中心的扩建成本与功耗大致一致。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)Phase I project proposes to develop a high performance mineral oil submersion cooling system for computer servers. While CPU (Central Processing Unit) over-clocking offers the potential to increase output from existing servers by up to 30%, it will also increase the heat generated in a small space in a non-linear fashion likely affecting server reliability. Inefficient cooling is a key driver in data center energy consumption, which has recently risen from 1% of US electricity to a predicted 3%. Mineral oil is better and heat dissipation than air, providing better cooling performance to allow over-clocking of computer servers while reducing the amount of cooling energy needed. The proposed Phase I research objectives are to: (i) design and install a cooling system specifically for high performance cooling; (ii) investigate and implement the best method to over-clock servers; (iii) document server performance and cooling requirements of an over-clocked system over a range of CPU clock speeds; (iv) document and improve system ease-of-use and ergonomics. The anticipated technical result is to quantify the performance and cost and energy benefits of a mineral oil immersion cooling system for over-clocked servers. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project comes from (a) increasing server processing power while (b) lowering energy use and (c) lowering build-out costs of a computer data center. For computational-heavy research institutions, over-clocking offers the potential to solve more of society's research needs with fewer resources as computer servers would perform significantly more computations than before. Also, lowering the energy of a large contributor to incremental US electricity demand will greatly benefit the environment. Finally, the build-out costs of a data center, which scales roughly in-line with power consumption, will also be greatly reduced as cooling energy is reduced.