Underfloor air containment

Abstract

This paper presents Underfloor air containment (UAC), a straightforward extension to Cold Aisle Containment (CAC). Both techniques aim to eliminate air stream mixing and thus reduce the volume of supply air needed for cooling. In UAC the underfloor air supply plenum of a data center is mechanically restricted to the floor sections containing the perforated tiles. We have implemented UAC in our department's 110 kW, 74 m2 data center. Through experimental evaluation and per-tile air velocity measurements, we show that UAC improves the air velocities passing through the perforated tiles in the CAC by 9%. Our solution is light-weight, very low cost, and rapidly installable in other data centers.