Mission Critical - Winter 2008 - (Page 10)

Cronin’s Workshop Continued from page 8 the highest risk to the servers. We have all seen what happens to cabling in the cabinets. To add a multitude of hoses to these cramped conditions is not necessarily an improvement for data center processing. Routing pipes through existing under-floor obstructions can make this solution impractical. Furthermore, the small inside diameter of the hoses connected to the heat sinks means that the cooling water must be pure and free of any contamination to eliminate flow blockages. Most chilled water systems are not generally known for their water purity. tion of this air exits through a needle valve as hot air exhaust. The remaining air is forced back through the center of the incoming air stream at a slower speed. The heat in the slower moving air is transferred to the faster moving incoming air. This super-cooled air flows through the center of the generator and exits through the cold air exhaust port. Five Steps of Innovation Imagine using a wind turbine to fill on-site storage tanks with compressed air. The tanks can be as large and filled to whatever pressure is necessary. A pipe (or two for redundancy) would Power Failure transport compressed air to computer High-density processors go into thermal What we have imagined cabinets designed to be cooled with shock when cooling systems fail. If autois a thoroughly reliable a Vortex cabinet cooler. For highmatically opening the cabinet doors were and redundant density situations, the compressed air a solution, we could eliminate doors. If could run through the heat sinks in the we add the entire cooling process to the combined power and servers in lieu of water. data center’s battery backup, we would cooling process that In either case, routing the heated significantly increase the loads on the does not require power exhaust air from the servers/vortex battery back-up systems. coolers through either a server-based A Radical New Idea: to address the from a utility or carbonon-board micro turbine generator that shortcomings of today’s designs and based generator. in-turn powers one (or both) of the operations, imagine a process that simuldual power supplies or collects the taneously provides cooling and power. Further imagine an operation where the facility’s energy exhaust air to turn a cabinet-mounted turbine generator. What we have imagined is a thoroughly reliable and could come from a 100 percent storable renewable resource. The air we breathe stores energy. The winds move ships redundant combined power and cooling process that does across the seas and carry moisture and particulates around the not require power from a utility or carbon-based generator. The wind turbines could supply one, two or a dozen globe. Air/wind is a powerful source that we need to harness. Compressed air is also a very familiar energy storage tech- compressed air tanks. The tanks provide energy storage for long-term needs (minutes, hours, days) We need only nique that can be employed to provide cooling and power. I recently traveled to Europe for a factory witness test and one air supply air line, thus we have eliminated 50 percent was amazed by the prolific use of large 1-2 megawatt (MW) (return line) of the piping in the data center. We have eliminated all water issues (desert cooling wind-generating turbines. Despite having blade lengths several hundred feet across, they were not imposing. They oper- is not a problem). Air pipes can even be run overhead ate in total silence and produce zero pollutants. I just learned (reduces under-floor clutter). Under-floor airflow is no that a Canadian firm is producing a design for a shorter and longer a significant issue. With the on-board generator we have eliminated 50 - 100 more powerful wind turbine. For many years I have wanted to use vortex cooling inside percent of the UPS and power distribution needs. We also data centers. Vortex-cooling devices (readily available) have eliminate 50-100 percent of our battery requirements. No wind or space for wind turbines? In a pinch, cooled electronic cabinets in dirty industrial environments for decades and are capable of producing sub-zero spot- mechanical compressors can always be utilized. These can cooling temperatures. These devices can be thermostatically be permanently installed or rented as needed from your controlled and are available in models producing up to 5,000 local rental store. Your job: Btus. Multiple units can be used for higher capacities. Several Point out the shortcomings of these ideas or let us manufacturers produce vortex tubes that are generally 6-10know what barriers prevent use of these tools in our data in. tall and 1-2-in in diameter. A vortex tube would cool electronics by separating a vor- centers. ■ tex of compressed air into hot and cold air streams. The vortex tube’s cylindrical generator (no moving parts) causes the ◗ REPRINTS OF THIS ARTICLE are available by coninput compressed air to rotate as it is forced down the inner tacting Jill DeVries at devriesj@bnpmedia.com or at walls of the hot (longer) end of the vortex tube. A small por- 248-244-1726. 10 | Mission Critical Winter 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Mission Critical - Winter 2008

Mission Critical - Winter 2008 Table of Contents Editorial: What Have We Been Doing? Cronin’s Workshop: Imagining the Perfect Data Center Power And Cooling Solution Digital Power: The Next Edge in Business Resiliency Zinc Whiskers: Keeping Up With The Green Movement Mission Critical Care: Shipping, Staging, and Installation Legal Perspectives: “A Reliable Energy Supply Is Key to Data Center Success” Continued Payback, Instant Protection Beyond the Nines The Green Information Technology Revolution Health Care Network Offers Glimpse of the Future of Backup Power High-Density Data Centers – Discuss, Design, Deploy High Performance Data Centers Call for Innovative Cooling Techniques More Data in the Data Center Five Considerations for Powering Data Center Racks New Products Industry News Events Classifieds Letters Ad Index Datacenter Wiki: wiki-Mission Critical

Mission Critical - Winter 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.