Patent ID: 8919143

Claim:
An air-cooling apparatus comprising: an air-cooling wall configured for data center-level cooling and facilitating cooling of airflow passing through a plurality of electronics racks positioned side-by-side in a row of the data center, the plurality of electronics racks comprising an air inlet side and an air outlet side, the air inlet and air outlet sides respectively enabling ingress and egress of air through the plurality of electronics racks, and the air-cooling wall being air-permeable and facilitating cooling of airflow passing through the plurality of electronics racks, the air-cooling wall being disposed separate and free-standing from the plurality of electronics racks and in spaced relation to one of the air outlet side or the air inlet side of the plurality of electronics racks when in operation, wherein the air-cooling wall is sized and configured with a width spanning the plurality of electronics racks, and comprises: a wall panel support structure independent and separate from the electronics racks, the wall panel support structure comprising a first track and a second track supporting multiple slidable wall panels free-standing from the plurality of electronics racks, wherein the first track and the second track support different slidable wall panels of the multiple slidable wall panels, and are disposed adjacent to each other at the one of the air outlet side or the air inlet side of the plurality of electronics racks positioned side-by-side in the row; the multiple slidable wall panels comprising at least one air-to-liquid heat exchanger slidably supported by one of the first track of the wall panel support structure or the second track of the wall panel support structure, the multiple slidable wall panels being disposed in spaced relation to the one of the air outlet sides or the air inlet sides of the plurality of electronics racks to facilitate airflow passing through the plurality of electronics racks also passing across the at least one air-to-liquid heat exchanger, the at least one air-to-liquid heat exchanger extracting heat from air passing thereacross, and the first track of the wall panel support structure being disposed closer to the one of the air outlet side or the air inlet side of the plurality of electronics racks than the second track of the wall panel support structure; and wherein one or more slidable wall panels slidably supported by the first track or the second track are configured to be slidably moved to overlap one or more other slidable wall panels slidably supported by the second track or the first track, respectively, while still allowing continued cooling of the airflow passing through the plurality of electronics racks by the at least one air-to-liquid heat exchanger.