Environment friendly cooling of server racks (colocation) is essential for knowledge facilities as a way to make sure the efficiency and longevity of the {hardware}. Liquid-cooled techniques have gotten more and more vital on this respect. Poppe + Potthoff Maschinenbau (PPM) develops check benches to look at and optimize the standard of cooling parts and techniques.
In keeping with present forecasts by the Worldwide Power Company (IEA), knowledge facilities will devour greater than 800 terawatt hours of vitality worldwide by 2026 – greater than twice as a lot as in 2022. Liquid cooling techniques assist to enhance energy utilization effectiveness (PUE). They’re as much as 40% extra environment friendly than standard air cooling and make a big contribution to lowering vitality consumption and prices.
Direct liquid cooling (DLC)
DLC techniques are thought-about to be notably environment friendly. The coolant is in direct contact with heat-generating parts within the server rack, which ensures very efficient warmth dissipation. This methodology permits high-density knowledge facilities, as DLC techniques are very compact. As they will address increased temperatures than air cooling, fewer followers are required. This not solely reduces energy consumption and prices, but additionally noise air pollution.
Leakage-free from the CDU to the chilly plate?
To stop injury attributable to leaks, all media-carrying parts of the DLC system should meet the best necessities by way of energy and tightness – additionally with altering pressures and temperatures. These embody the coolant distribution models (CDU), connectors, valves, strains and the cooling plates, inside which the coolant circulates by microchannels. These are put in straight above the heat-producing parts akin to CPUs and GPUs.
Check benches from Poppe + Potthoff Maschinenbau
To check the mechanical energy and tightness of DLC parts and techniques, the German firm PPM gives check benches for burst and leak checks as much as 70 bar (1100 psi) in addition to dynamic stress pulsation checks of as much as 20 bar (290 psi). Larger pressures and water hammer checks will also be realized. With sinusoidal and trapezoidal curves in frequencies of as much as 2 Hz, all working circumstances will be comprehensively simulated over the service life.
Validation below actual circumstances
Testing is carried out with water-glycol emulsions or different coolants akin to PG25. The media and ambient temperatures within the temperature-controlled check chambers normally differ between -20°C and +90°C (-4°F to +194°F). The simulation of actual working circumstances in PPM’s check benches makes it potential to reduce failure dangers and prices and to make sure optimum efficiency of all parts of the cooling system in interplay.
