General Guidelines for Commercialization a Small-Scale In-Row Cooled Data Center: A Case Study

As the world is moving toward edge computing, the need for small scale, widely distributed data centers became more critical. The traditional raised floor cooling techniques might not be applicable in these data centers and it could be more efficient to use in-row coolers. Recently, a small-scale data center was built at Binghamton University. This data center consists of ten cabinets and six in-row air cooling units combined into a single cold aisle enclosure. In this study, a CFD model for this data center is built considering all components using Future Facilities CFD tool (6SigmaRoom). After that, this model is utilized to conduct a detailed computational heat transfer analysis. These analyses include: the data center heat load, IT-equipment different configurations, in-row coolers supply air temperature, in-row coolers airflow rate, the data center running cost and some instructions to improve the data center performance. Moreover, behaviors that could harm the IT-equipment were identified and proposed solutions to ensure the IT -equipment reliability were presented. Results showed that the data center heat load should be limited to 156 kW (15.6 kW per cabinet) and the supply air temperature should not exceed 23°C. In case of installing switches, cabinet load should be limited to 14 kW.