Experimental investigation and application analysis on an integrated system of free cooling and heat recovery for data centers

Ding, Jing; Zhang, Hainan; Leng, Dongmei; Xu, Hongbo; Tian, Changqing; Zhai, Zhiqiang

doi:10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2022.01.003

Cited by 27 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…(5) The system performs better with high incoming air temperature and low relative humidity because of its high evaporation ability. (6) The temperature gradient between Air and PCM determines how long it takes for PCM to melt/solidify. (7) The cooling tower should adjust airflow and water flow rates to optimize system performance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Free Cooling System (FCS) will store cool energy in the TES at night and reuse it throughout the day. FCS can only be used when the daily range temperature falls within the thermal comfort range, and it is most effective when the daily range temperature is the highest [6]. A significant quantity of energy could be kept in Phase Change Materials (PCMs) during phase shifts among solid, liquid, and gas phases in just a tight temperature change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Performance Enhancement of a Ventilation System in Hot and Dry Climate Using Air-PCM Heat Exchanger

Kareem¹,

Adham²,

Yaqob³

2022

IJHT

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The building projects' power consumption and CO2 emissions are 40% and 33%, respectively. It is a viable strategy to use phase change material in energy storage to provide free cooling. There are few studies on free cooling in hot climates, so the proposed system uses paraffin as a thermal storage material for free cooling and ventilation. The project contains a cooling tower, a horizontal slab heat exchanger between air and phase change material, and an indirect compact heat exchanger between air and water. The energy equation is computed using Engineering Equation Solver software to assess the overall system perform properly. The model investigated the parameters that affect the system's performance under various climate conditions. The system has improved indoor air quality by providing ventilation and extending the period of thermal comfort. The system's performance is determined by the cooling tower's performance and the Air to PCM and Air to water heat exchangers. The Air to PCM heat exchanger reduces supply temperature by 2°C with a slight pressure drop < 20Pa and does not affect system power consumption.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance Enhancement of a Ventilation System in Hot and Dry Climate Using Air-PCM Heat Exchanger

Kareem¹,

Adham²,

Yaqob³

2022

IJHT

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“…Data centres consume up to 416 billion kWh of electricity each year, which accounts for almost 2.0 % of the global electricity, and thus represent a significant proportion of global power consumption (Sulaiman, Daraghmeh & Wang 2020; Ding et al. 2022). Surprisingly, up to 40 % of the electricity is used for mechanical-vapor-compression cooling systems for the data hosts (Dayarathna, Wen & Fan 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the modern information and digital era, while we enjoy the convenience brought by big data analysis, cloud services, high-performance parallel computing and artificial intelligence, we need to address the related increase in energy consumption and comply with stricter thermal management requirements of data centres (Dang, Jia & Lu 2017). Data centres consume up to 416 billion kWh of electricity each year, which accounts for almost 2.0 % of the global electricity, and thus represent a significant proportion of global power consumption (Sulaiman, Daraghmeh & Wang 2020;Ding et al 2022). Surprisingly, up to 40 % of the electricity is used for mechanical-vapor-compression cooling systems for the data hosts (Dayarathna, Wen & Fan 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hydrodynamic metamaterial redirector for steering fluid flow in pipelines with arbitrary curvatures

Pang,

You,

Chen

2024

J. Fluid Mech.

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The dynamics of fluid-conveying pipelines with different shapes has received extensive research attention. Significant wall shear stress and flow separation occur when the fluid flows through pipelines with various curvatures. These phenomena trigger pipeline vibration, the generation of mechanical and hydrodynamic noise, damage, and even the rupture of the pipeline. However, previous studies have not considered the mechanism of internal pipeline flow to eliminate flow separation and the generation of secondary flow inside bent pipelines by redirecting and manipulating the flow. To steer the fluid flow, a ‘hydrodynamic transformation strategy’ based on the metamaterial technology is proposed for the first time in this work; through this strategy, the fluid in pipelines can be made to flow along trajectories that are always parallel to the central axis of the bent pipelines. Interestingly, this innovative method can effectively eliminate the elbow-induced secondary flow and prevent the generation of a pressure gradient toward the pipeline wall. Using the soft lithography technology or the three-dimensional printing technology, the hydrodynamic metamaterial microstructure required to manipulate the fluid flow path in actual engineering applications can be achieved. Our work paves the way for developing new approaches for controlling the flow characteristics and reducing the turbulence intensity of the fluid flowing in pipelines with elbows and corners.

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“…Gupta and Puri [17] provided a technical and economic analysis modelling a hybrid data center infrastructure including water-cooled high-density computing racks and air-cooled low-density server racks. Ding et al [18] proposed an integrated system of free cooling and heat recovery from data centers, that can work in four different modes (mechanical cooling and mechanical heat recovery, pump free cooling and pump heat recovery), according to cooling conditions and heating demands from staff office: the Authors experimentally proved the feasibility of such an integrated system, especially in northern cold cities. Lin et al [19] proposed an integrated system to exploit the waste heat of data centers to satisfy the annual demand for heating, cooling and sanitary hot water, by combining a CO2 heat pump with a lithium bromide-water absorption refrigeration system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental and numerical investigation of a micro-ORC system for heat recovery from data centers

Ancona

Bianchi

Branchini

et al. 2022

J. Phys.: Conf. Ser.

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In the effort to enhance the recovery of waste energy, data centers are drawing attention because of the huge amount of heat discharged from the computer racks. Organic Rankine cycle (ORC) power systems are a viable solution to exploit servers’ waste heat, as it is available at very low temperatures. The purpose of this study is to assess the feasibility of integrating a micro-ORC system into data centers cooling systems and its potential energy saving. An experimental analysis is carried out on a kW-scale ORC test bench, with R134a as working fluid. Heat is supplied at temperatures and flow rates in the range respectively 40-55 °C and 1.8-5 m3/h, consistently with typical values observed in data centers application, showing the second law efficiency varying between 5% and 13%. Furthermore, a steady-state model of the micro-ORC has been recalibrated and validated against experimental data; the built-in volume ratio of the reciprocating piston expander has been optimized to improve the filling performance of the machine. A parametric analysis, varying the boundary conditions within their range of interest for this application, and the working fluid (R1234yf and R1234ze(E)), shows that a maximum second law efficiency of 30% is achievable with R1234ze(E).

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Experimental investigation and application analysis on an integrated system of free cooling and heat recovery for data centers

Cited by 27 publications

References 19 publications

Performance Enhancement of a Ventilation System in Hot and Dry Climate Using Air-PCM Heat Exchanger

Performance Enhancement of a Ventilation System in Hot and Dry Climate Using Air-PCM Heat Exchanger

Hydrodynamic metamaterial redirector for steering fluid flow in pipelines with arbitrary curvatures

Experimental and numerical investigation of a micro-ORC system for heat recovery from data centers

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