Server Room Cooling Analysis of Server Room Cooling Process

First, we upload the CAD model of the server room. The air is circulated throughout the room, entering through the inlet (lower box on the wall) and leaving it through the outlet (higher box on the wall). Hot air is streaming from the cooling outlets of the server racks into the room. The image below shows the SimScale pre-processing viewer displaying the CAD model which was uploaded as a STEP model.

The next step is to create the computational grid. In this case, we choose an automatic hex-dominant mesh for internal aerodynamics with a boundary layer refinement. A cut view is shown in the figure below. The second figure zooms into the refined cell layers at the wall to resolve the viscous boundary layer.

The final step before we can run the simulation is to define boundary conditions and solver settings. We are using a natural convection solver and adapting the numerical settings to stabilize the simulation run. This simulation took around one hour to complete on an 8-core machine.

Server Room Cooling Conclusion

The results show that the cooling concept is working efficiently. The outgoing flow of the inlet is blocked by the server racks, and the air circulates through the gaps and in between the walls and the racks.

The hot air from the servers is carried upward by the flow and convection effects, and thereby does not increase the temperature of other servers. One can now run several “what if” scenarios to increase the efficiency of the cooling process, or to adjust the detailed layout of the servers within the room.

Do you want to learn more about HVAC simulation? Here you can find more information about how CAE can help you improve your HVAC system.

Also, this article might interest you: 5 Simulation Projects for Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning.

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The Challenge

The installation situation of apparatus engineering devices can be critical for their performance. This project’s goal was to create a homogeneous flow field in front of the apparatus in order to enhance its performance.

Duct Design Inlet Duct Design Simulation

Parallel to the duct design, the flow simulation capabilities of SimScale have been used to analyze the impact on the flow pattern for each design. It was possible to use the insights into the flow behavior gained from using SimScale to make early design decisions, without the overhead of testing and prototyping.

During the project, multiple simulations were carried out for multiple designs. One of the simulations took around 30 minutes on an 8-core machine. For a well-trained user, the simulation setup takes less than 10 minutes.

The image below shows the integrated post-processing environment of SimScale with a streamline visualization of the velocity field.

Duct Design Simulation Results

The results speak for themselves. The image below shows a color map visualization of the velocity field in the middle plane of two designs. The design on the left is the original version while in the design on the right, turning vanes have been added to the corner. The flow field near the outlet (on the left) is very inhomogeneous for the design without vanes. The reason for this flow behavior is the large recirculation region behind the corner of the duct. The design on the right shows a much more beneficial behavior: the airflow leaves the duct uniformly, which was this design project’s objective.

The streamline visualization of the velocity field below illustrates the reason for the resulting flow behavior more clearly. In the design without turning vanes, a large recirculation region appears behind the corner; in this design, the efficient flow channel is reduced to almost half of the channel width. This shows that investing a small amount of time in simulation while designing an inlet duct can significantly improve the performance of the overall system.

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Download this case study for free to learn how the SimScale CFD platform was used to investigate a ducting system and optimize its performance.

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