Effects of Liquid Nitrogen for Fire Prevention in Data Centers on Typical Integrated Circuit Chips

Data center fires, often caused by continuous high-load operations, result in significant losse. Liquid nitrogen has been proposed as an environmentally friendly cryogenic fluid for data center fire prevention. In this work, the effects of liquid nitrogen on typical integrated circuit chips in data centers were studied through experimental research and numerical simulation, focusing on the environmental parameter characteristics and the effects on structural and electrical performance under the liquid nitrogen actions. Results show that liquid nitrogen spraying has obvious cooling and inerting effects. Numerical simulations revealed that the temperature near the action point under spraying decreases to 0°C at 2.5 s at room temperature, indicating significant local cooling. Under high-temperature combustion conditions, the temperature near the action point decreased to 28°C after 21 s, and the oxygen concentration in the experimental space fell below 5% after 60s, effectively inhibiting combustio. The actions of liquid nitrogen have less harmful effect on the chips, with primary impacts observed in some chips and plastic laminates. In addition, because of the poor temperature change characteristics of quartz, the input and output frequencies of the quartz oscillator are unstable, leading to slight deviations in the IV curve. This work provides valuable insights for the development and application of liquid nitrogen fire prevention technology in data centers, offering a critical reference for enhancing fire safety in such environments.