Thermal Fatigue in a Membrane Heat Exchanger with Environmental Degradation

Abstract

Mechanical cooling systems are a critical element of the infrastructure needed for data centers. Effective and efficient cooling of data centers is relevant to the economic and environmental impact of data centers and the communities where they are located. This paper shows the risk elements associated with the development of an air-cooled system and determination of the system reliability. Risks to heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment under free cooling conditions due to changes in the operating environment, including temperature, humidity, and contamination are evaluated. The most critical unknown factor in the assessment of reliability is the actual conditions under free air cooling, since there is not enough publicly available data to determine the actual environmental envelope under free air-cooling applications. In addition, the most significant difference between free air cooling and traditional air conditioning is the diversity of technical solutions among various free air-cooled data centers, which vary in terms of their location, the specific architecture of the free air cooling, and the inclusion of other power management methods in conjunction with free air cooling.