Towards development of a passive datacenter cooling technology: On-server thermosyphon cooling loop under dynamic workload

The main aim of the current paper is to demonstrate the capability of a two-phase closed thermosyphon loop system to cool down a contemporary datacenter rack, passively cooling the entire rack, including its numerous servers. The effects on the cooling loop performance with respect to the server orientation, microevaporator design, riser and downcomer diameters, working fluid, and approach temperature at the condenser have been modeled and simulated. The influence of the thermosyphon height (here from 5-20 cm with a horizontally or vertically oriented server) on the driving force that guarantees the system operation while simultaneously fulfilling the critical heat flux (CHF) criterion also has been examined. In summary, the thermosyphon height was found to be the most significant design parameter. For the conditions simulated, in terms of CHF, the 10-cm-high thermosyphon was the most advantageous system design with a minimum safety factor of 1.6 relative to the imposed heat flux of 80 Wcm −2. Additionally, a case study including an overhead water-cooled heat exchanger to extract heat from the thermosyphon loop has been developed, and then the entire rack cooling system has been evaluated in terms of cost savings, payback period, and net benefit per year. This approximate study provides a general understanding of how the datacenter cooling infrastructure directly impacts the operating budget as well as influencing the thermal/hydraulic operation, performance, and reliability of the datacenter. Finally, the study shows that the passive two-phase closed-loop thermosyphon cooling system is a potentially economically sound technology to cool high-heat-flux servers of datacenters.

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“…3.4. The present manuscript follows the simulation approach already presented in Marcinichen et al (2014).…”

Section: Simulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Passive Two-Phase Thermosyphon Loop Cooling System for High-Heat-Flux Servers

Lamaison

Marcinichen

Szczukiewicz

et al. 2015

Interfac Phenom Heat Transfer

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“…As investigated previously by Marcinichen et al (2014 and performed another parametric study on thermosyphon height and riser and downcomer diameters. However, for this application, the height was much bigger, as the authors studied heights of 50, 75 and 100 cm.…”

Section: Geometric Parametersmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Throughout the whole simulations, the system was able to keep the chip's temperature below 85°C and without the risk of dry out. Szczukiewicz et al (2015) added to the work of Marcinichen et al (2014) by carrying out a thermo-economic analysis of a double thermosyphon loop system applied to a datacenter rack. The findings of the study provided by the authors are described in detail later in the thermo-economic analysis section.…”

Section: Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The LTCM laboratory team, after conducting a number of numerical studies on two-phase thermosyphon loop, as previously described, carried out a four-part series. The first one was an experimental campaign, and the following were: a Previously the models presented by the team from LTCM were all steady-state except for the modeling of the evaporator in Marcinichen et al (2014). The authors applied the conservation equations to all components considering the mass flow rate the same for all cells at each time step and neglecting the accumulation term in the momentum equation, arguing that the pressure gradient exhibited very fast dynamics.…”

Section: Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The authors applied the conservation equations to all components considering the mass flow rate the same for all cells at each time step and neglecting the accumulation term in the momentum equation, arguing that the pressure gradient exhibited very fast dynamics. They also took the heat loss along the piping into account, instead of assuming adiabatic piping as the previously stated models (Marcinichen et al, 2014, Szczukiewicz et al, 2015. Dynamic energy the tube-in-tube presented in the former works.…”

Section: Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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