Forecasting data center cooling demand remains a primary thermal management challenge in an increasingly larger global energy-consuming industry. This paper proposes a dynamic modeling approach to evaluate two different strategies for delivering cold air into a data center room. The common cooling method provides air through perforated floor tiles by means of a centralized distribution system, hindering flow management at the aisle level. We propose an idealized system such that five overhead heat exchangers are located above the aisle and handle the entire server cooling demand. In one case, the overhead heat exchangers force the airflow downwards into the aisle (Overhead Downward Flow (ODF)); in the other case, the flow is forced to move upwards (Overhead Upward Flow (OUF)). A complete fluid dynamic, heat transfer, and thermodynamic analysis is proposed to model the system’s thermal performance under both steady state and transient conditions. Inside the servers and heat exchangers, the flow and heat transfer processes are modeled using a set of differential equations solved in MATLAB™. This solution is coupled with ANSYS-Fluent™, which computes the three-dimensional velocity, temperature, and turbulence on the Airside. The two approaches proposed (ODF and OUF) are evaluated and compared by estimating their cooling effectiveness and the local Entropy Generation. The latter allows identifying the zones within the room responsible for increasing the inefficiencies (irreversibilities) of the system. Both approaches demonstrated similar performance, with a small advantage shown by OUF. The results of this investigation demonstrated a promising approach of data center on-demand cooling scenarios.
An experimental, numerical, and theoretical investigation of the behavior of a gas-assisted liquid droplet impacting on a solid surface is presented with the aim of determining the effects of a carrier gas on the droplet deformation dynamics. Experimentally, droplets were generated within a circular air jet for gas Reynolds numbers Reg = 0–2547. High-speed photography was used to capture the droplet deformation process, whereas the numerical analysis was conducted using the volume of fluid (VOF) model. The numerical and theoretical predictions showed that the contribution of a carrier gas to the droplet spreading becomes significant only at high Weo and when the work done by pressure forces is greater than 10% of the kinetic energy. Theoretical predictions of the maximum spreading diameter agree reasonably well with the experimental and numerical observations.
Estimation of the extreme precipitation over a target watershed under a changing climate would be necessary to design safe large hydraulic structures. For this purpose, the maximum precipitation (MP) estimation approach was applied to the American River Watershed (ARW) in Northern California under several future climate conditions over 90 water years . These future climate conditions were obtained using 13 future climate projections from two general circulation models (ECHAM5 and CCSM3) based on four future climate scenarios (Special Report on Emissions Scenarios: A1B, A1FI, A2, and B1). A total of 1,170 future projected severe storm events (90 years × 13 projections) were selected with respect to the 72-hr basin-average precipitation over the ARW. The 72-hr basin-average precipitation for each of the selected severe storm events was maximized over the ARW by horizontally shifting the atmospheric boundary conditions of a regional atmospheric model in order to optimize the path of the storm system that corresponded to the particular event. After maximization, the MP estimates, which are the largest precipitation depths among the maximized results, were obtained as 836.7 mm for the early half-century period (2010-2054) and 1,056.5 mm for the late half-century period .
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