Patent ID: 7832925

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: at least one thermal simulator, each thermal simulator simulating heated airflow exhaust of a respective electronics subsystem, electronics rack or row of electronics racks, and each thermal simulator comprising: at least one air-moving device for establishing airflow from an air inlet side to an air outlet side of the thermal simulator, wherein established airflow exhausting from the thermal simulator is tailored to correlate to heated airflow exhaust of the respective electronics subsystem, electronics rack or row of electronics racks being simulated; and at least one fluid-to-air heat exchanger, the at least one fluid-to-air heat exchanger heating airflow through the thermal simulator, wherein temperature of established airflow exhausting from the air outlet side of the thermal simulator is tailored to correlate to a temperature of the heated airflow exhaust of the respective electronics subsystem, electronics rack or row of electronics racks being simulated; and a fluid distribution apparatus comprising at least one fluid distribution unit disposed separate from the at least one thermal simulator, the at least one fluid distribution unit providing hot fluid to the at least one fluid-to-air heat exchanger of the at least one thermal simulator.