2.

As a lubricant: the moisture film reduces friction between moving bodies thereby
voltages can’t accumulate as fast on the surface.

Below a relative humidity of 50%, the failures increase exponentially with decreasing relative
humidity [1]. For example, at 5% RH, the number of failures is approximately 2.5 times that at
50% relative humidity.

Humidity control methods:

Several commercially available methods are available to maintain RH levels. They are,
1. Steam
2. Water Spray
3. Evaporative pan
To use steam to increase relative humidity can either be direct steam provided by a boiler or
steam to steam where the steam h m a boiler heats fresh water. This later method would
eliminate any concern with chemicals that may be used to treat boiler feed water. Water spray
can take various forms to inject water into the environment - compressed air or ultrasonic
transducers to atomize the water. Finally evaporative pan uses steam, hot water or electricity to
provide energy for heating the coils which in turn heats the water. Steam is recommended for
most applications.

Computer server room acoustics:

With the increased heat loads of computer equipment the air flow rates required to cool
this equipment has also increased. Of course, this increase in system air flow rates has had a
negative impact on the acoustical levels generated in the data center. Some measurements
comparing room air flow rates, room level heat fluxes and sound power levels are shown in
Fig.4.

Fig.4. Data center acoustical power

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 The German Workplace Noise Laws have a limit of 70 dbA sound power level for rooms.
This would indicate that room air flow rates exceeding approximately 18 cfm/ft 2 or room heat
fluxes exceeding 110 watts/ft 2 would exceed the room level sound power levels allowed by the
German Workplace Noise Laws. These measurements were made in data centers that had racks
with powers less than 5 kW. With power levels exceeding 20 kW for some racks being shipped
today, the acoustical noise levels would appear to greatly exceed allowable levels in room.

Conclusions:
NITK server data centre was studied with the aim of addressing some of the thermal challenges.
CAD drawings are drawn to understand the clear concept of raised floor precision air-
conditioning. The effect of humidity and sound on the performance of the CRAC unit is studied.
To improve the data centre performance, some design solutions can be performed using
computational fluid dynamics.

References:

[1] Chang-Yu Wu, Roger RSchmidt, Brian P. Rawson, Interaction of EMC, acoustics and
thermal management in the reliable operations of data center, Proc.of IEEE conference (2002)0-
7803-7277.

[2] Jinkyun Cho, Byungseon Sean Kim, Evaluation of air management system’s thermal
performance for superior cooling efficiency in high-density data centers, Energy and Buildings
43 (2011) 2145–2155.

[3] Tao Lu, Xiaoshu Lu, Matias Remes, Martti Viljanen, Investigation of air management and
energy performance in a data center in Finland: Case study, Energy and Buildings 43 (2011)
3360–3372.

[4] B. Fakhim, M. Behnia, S.W. Armfield, N. Srinarayana, Cooling solutions in an operational

data centre: A case study, Applied Thermal Engineering 31 (2011) 2279-2291.

[5] Chandrakant D. Patel, Cullen E. Bash, Ratnesh Sharma, Abdlmonem Beitelmal, Christopher
G. Malone, Smart Chip, System and Data Center Enabled by Advanced Flexible Cooling
Resources, 21st IEEE SEMI-THERM Symposium (2005) 7803-8985.

[6] Madhusudan Iyengar, Roger Schmidt, and Joe Caricari, Reducing energy in data centers
through control of room air conditioning units, Proc.of IEEE conference (2010) 978-1-4244-
5343.

[7] Paolo Cremonesi, Andrea Sansottera, Stefano Gualandi, Optimizing Cooling and Server
Power Consumption, Proc.of IEEE conference (2011) 978-1-4577-1481.

[8] Michael K Patterson, The Effect of Data Center Temperature on Energy Efficiency, Proc.of
IEEE conference (2008) 978-1-4244-1701.

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