Optimization of data center room layout to minimize rack inlet air temperature

In a typical raised floor data center with alternating hot and cold aisles, air enters the front of each rack over the entire height of the rack. Since the heat loads of data processing equipment continues to increase at a rapid rate, it is a challenge to maintain the temperature within the requirements as stated for all the racks within the data center. A facility manager has discretion in deciding the data center room layout, but a wrong decision will eventually lead to equipment failure. There are many complex decisions to be made early in the design as the data center evolves. Challenges occur such as optimizing the raised floor plenum, floor tile placement, minimizing the data center local hot spots etc. These adjustments in configuration affects rack inlet air temperatures which is one of the important key to effective thermal management.; In the presented research, a raised floor data center with 4.5 KW racks is considered. There are four rows of racks with alternating hot and cold aisle arrangement. Each row has six racks installed. Two CRAC units supply chilled air to the data center through the pressurized plenum. Effect of plenum depth, floor tile placement or cold aisle location and ceiling height on the rack inlet air temperature is discussed. Plots will be presented over the defined range. Now using more than one design variable, a "multi-variable" approach to optimize data center room layout is proposed. Significant improvement is shown over the thermal performance of baseline data center model. The baseline model is also optimized using the traditional approach. Multi-variable approach is also shown to have a considerable improvement over the traditional design optimization approach. Finally, the results of multi-variable design optimization are used to present guidelines for the optimal data center performance.