A number of options are available to facilities professionals looking to improve cooling efficiency and optimize thermal performance.
A number of options are available to improve cooling efficiency and optimize thermal performance. Aisle containment prevents the mixing of hot and cold air when used with intelligent thermal management controls and can be used to manage temperature to optimize cooling system performance. Either hot aisle or cold aisle containment systems can be installed and are capable of efficiently cooling today’s higher density data centers. This paper reviews both approaches.
Key Takeaways
- Beyond implementing basic measures such as sealing moisture out of the data center and improving airflow, aisle containment to prevent the mixing of hot and cold air stands out as a method that can dramatically reduce energy costs, minimize hot spots and improve the carbon footprint of data centers.
- While hot aisle and cold aisle containment systems both are capable of increasing efficiency and cooling today’s high heat data centers, cold aisle containment better addresses the task of separating hot and cold air while supplying cold air to the servers.
- Cold aisle containment can be used with or without conventional raised floor cooling. It is easily retrofitted into existing raised floor data centers and works in tandem with the raised floor as well as with extreme density cooling systems to produce highly efficient cooling solutions.
