Data centre cooling systems
AssigneeBripco Bvba
InventorsNick Vaney, Tom Kingham, Simon Britton
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method of cooling a data center having at least one hot aisle (145) and at least one cold aisle (144), including the steps of producing cooling air having controlled to have temperature and relative humidity within certain pre-defined limits; supplying the cooling air to a plurality of items of IT equipment (143) located in the data center between the cold aisle and the hot aisle; measuring the velocity of air flowing from the hot aisle to the cold aisle through an opening (150) between the hot aisle and the cold aisle; and controlling the rate of supply of cooling air to the items of IT equipment in dependence on the velocity of air so measured.
Claims20
A method of cooling a data centre with cooling air, wherein the method comprises the following steps:
- (a) defining criteria for the temperature and humidity of the cooling air, wherein the criteria correspond to a region on a notional psychrometric chart, said region spanning a range of temperatures on the notional psychrometric chart and spanning a range of humidities on the notional psychrometric chart;
- (b) determining the psychrometric characteristics of ambient air from outside the data centre, the characteristics corresponding to a single point on the notional psychrometric chart;
- (c) selecting a single set point for the psychrometric characteristics of the cooling air from multiple possible set points spanning a range of temperatures on the notional psychrometric chart, the multiple possible set points being in said region on the psychrometric chart, the selected single set point being chosen in dependence on the temperature and on the humidity of the ambient air;
- (d) producing cooling air having psychrometric characteristics substantially corresponding to the single set point set so selected;
- and
- (e) delivering the cooling air to a region in the data centre to be cooled;
- wherein, the criteria for the temperature and humidity of the cooling air are stored in memory of a programmable controller, and wherein step (c) is performed using a program run on the programmable controller, the program using the determined psychrometric characteristics of step (b).
A control system structured to carry out a method of cooling a data centre with cooling air in conjunction with a source of cooling air for cooling IT equipment in the data centre, wherein the method comprises
- (a) defining criteria for the temperature and humidity of the cooling air, wherein the criteria correspond to a region on a notional psychrometric chart, said region spanning a range of temperatures on the notional psychrometric chart and spanning a range of humidities on the notional psychrometric chart;
- (b) determining the psychrometric characteristics of ambient air from outside the data centre, the characteristics corresponding to a single point on the notional psychrometric chart;
- (c) selecting a single set point for the psychrometric characteristics of the cooling air from multiple possible set points spanning a range of temperatures on the notional psychrometric chart, the multiple possible set points being in said region on the psychrometric chart, the selected single set point being chosen in dependence on the temperature and on the humidity of the ambient air;
- (d) producing cooling air having psychrometric characteristics substantially corresponding to the single set point set so selected;
- and
- (e) delivering the cooling air to a region in the data centre to be cooled wherein the control system includes
- an input component structured to receive information about the temperature and humidity of ambient air outside the data centre;
- a memory component structured to store said defined criteria for the humidity and temperature of the cooling air, and
- a processor component structured to:
- (i) determine said selected single set point in view of the stored defined criteria, and the information received by said input about the temperature and humidity of the ambient air outside the data centre;
- (ii) determine how much, if any, of air exhausted from the data centre and how much, if any, of the ambient air outside the data centre are used by the source of cooling air to produce cooling air having psychrometric characteristics substantially corresponding to the single set point set so selected, in view of the information received by said input about the temperature and humidity of the ambient air outside the data centre;
- and
- (iii) determine how much, if any, mechanical cooling and how much, if any, adiabatic cooling is used by the source of cooling air to produce cooling air having psychrometric characteristics substantially corresponding to the single set point set so selected,
- wherein the processor performs operations (i), (ii) and (iii) in view of the information received about the temperature and humidity of the ambient air.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.