Experimental investigations of air conditioning solutions in high power density data centers using a scaled physical model

• Different solutions of thermal management of data centers are investigated, compared and evaluated.
• A scaled physical model data center has been designed and constructed using the theory of scale modeling.
• Effects of using aisle partition and aisle containment on rack inlet temperature are studied.

The widespread use of data centers, the dramatical increase of the data center power density and the need for improving cooling system efficiency to maintain reliable operation temperature and save cooling energy make the study of data center thermal management an urgent issue. In the current paper, three different configurations for thermal management solution of high power density data centers are investigated, compared and evaluated. A scaled physical model data center has been designed and constructed for the sake of the study using the theory of scale modeling of air flow experiments. The results showed that (i) by using aisle partition and aisle containment the rack inlet temperature can be reduced by 3–13% and 13–15.5% for aisle partition and aisle containment configurations, respectively; (ii) the intake air temperature reduction increases with increasing power density; and (iii) using aisle partitions and aisle containment with raised floor improves the data center cooling performance.