Aisle Containment CFD and Retrofit - 365 Main, Chandler, AZ

Category: Data Center

Square Footage: 16,500 sq ft

Services Provided: HVAC

Completion Date: June 11, 2009

Owner: 365 Main

The Expedia suite at the 365 Main data center in Chandler, Arizona was analyzed with a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) program to determine the efficacy of adding a hot aisle containment system with the goal of resolving the cooling problems in the data center without adding more cooling equipment. The analysis was run for two scenarios. In the first scenario the racks were loaded to 5-kW each for a total power draw of 3-megaWatts. In the second scenario the power draw was increased to 7-kW because Expedia was interested in installing higher density racks within their colocation room.

Pragmatic PE modeled the datacenter with and without aisle containment as shown above. The graphic on top shows the data center operating in its existing condition without containment and the heat pollution from rack outlets into rack inlets matches what was observed in the field at lower rack loads. The bottom graphic shows the same data center with hot aisle containment (except at the network racks) performing very well at elevated rack loads. Note that this superior performance with containment is achieved without adding any mechanical cooling equipment which allowed more of the electrical power infrastructure to be used for servers instead of cooling.