Efficient reduction of energy costs in a data center cooling system

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

All organizations rely predominantly on their information technology infrastructures. The performance of the information technology systems depends largely on their cooling systems. This Engage project focuses on the data center cooling. The main challenges in the data center cooling systems are: adaptability, lifecycle costs, and maintenance. In this Engage project, these challenges will be investigated for the selected data center as a case study, and new technologies will be introduced and applied to its existing cooling system. The new technologies include: (1) Fresh air cooling; (2) Indirect air-air heat exchanger cooling; (3) Thermal storage (phase change); and (4) Liquid cooling. For each case, the main challenges will be investigated and discussed. Our specific attention will be paid to the liquid cooling, which is an efficient technology with high potential to be widely employed for high-density data centers in the near future. Application of nanofluid is the core of the liquid cooling technology for this project, aiming at the highest possible thermal properties (thermal conductivity) with the smallest possible concentrations by uniform dispersion and stable suspension of nanoparticles in the host fluids. Success of this proposed research project is important for the data center cooling technology development and for the Canadian economy.