Apparatus and method for correlating the air flow velocity in an environmental chamber to a rack assembly
AssigneeTellabs Bedford, Inc.
InventorAndrew G. Low
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system and method are disclosed for measuring the airflow velocity within a chamber in order to qualify electronic equipment based on airflow velocity in combination with temperature rating. Furthermore, a system and method are disclosed for measuring and monitoring the airflow velocity at various positions within an equipment assembly rack during operation in order to determine the position of and eliminate hot-spots that occur based on temperature and airflow velocity tolerance parameters.
Claims20
A system for qualification of an electronic equipment installed in a rack assembly, the system comprising:
- a detection unit positioned within the rack assembly for measuring air velocity;
- and
- a computer system coupled to the detection unit for monitoring and correlating the air velocity with bit error rates of the electronic equipment as the air velocity increases and decreases over a period of time and including
- an error detection unit for detecting bit errors in order to determine the bit error rate of the equipment at a particular air velocity and thereby qualify the electronic equipment at a minimum air velocity.
A method of qualifying electronic equipment located within a rack assembly with respect to air velocity and temperature, the method comprising the steps of:
- inserting a sensing unit within a rack assembly;
- varying the air velocity through the rack assembly;
- and
- measuring the bit error rate of the electronic equipment in order to determine the minimum air flow rate needed to qualify the equipment at a maximum bit error rate.
An apparatus for measuring airflow in a housing enclosing a plurality of electronic components, said apparatus comprising:
- an array of airflow measuring devices located within the housing and configured to measure airflow at a plurality of positions within the housing;
- a controller in communication with the array of airflow measuring devices and configured to receive signals therefrom;
- an error monitoring device configured to detect errors in at least one signal produced by the plurality of electronic components;
- and
- a processor configured and arranged to correlate airflows measured by the airflow monitoring devices with errors detected by the error monitoring device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.