Numerical Simulation and Comparative Analysis of Different Airflow Distributions in Data Centers

Abstract Airflow pattern in a data center impacts the cooling effectiveness of the air-conditioning systems significantly, and hence impacts the energy efficiency of the whole data center. This paper presented investigation of 3 airflow patterns for a typical data center by CFD simulation. An under-floor air supplying system, row-level cooling system and rack level cooling system was used in the targeted data center. Cooling performance was simulated by CFD software. The cooling performance was compared by indices like Index of Mixing (IOM), Return Temperature Index (RTI), Temperature Inequality Index KT, Mean Temperature Difference Index of Rack Intake and Exhaust Air, Energy Utilization Coefficient. The results indicated that rack level airflow pattern shows the best performance in data center cooling. Compared with under-floor air supplying system, the IOM index is only 0.0011, and the KT index is 0.0082. In the end an optimization method was proposed for the deficiencies in rack level cooling system.