A Real-Time Data Center Airflow and Energy Assessment Tool

A tool has been created to provide a simple assessment of airflow and energy management in an existing data center. Calculations are based on a well-mixed model of the data equivalent to the assumption that there is one effective rack and one effective cooling unit. The Air Distribution Effectiveness (ADE) index is proposed as a performance metric. For a given facility layout, ADE is a fixed number and is independent of IT load and cooler airflow. Therefore, ADE may be used as a performance metric and also to estimate rack inlet temperatures under various alternative cooler-airflow and rack-load scenarios. The tool described here may be used to determine how cooler airflow may be reduced or the chilled-water temperature may be increased to reduce data center energy consumption. The total net savings includes possible IT server fan speed (power) increases in response to inlet temperatures reaching a critical threshold value. This paper details the methods used in the software tool and shows example applications.Copyright © 2009 by ASME