Call Us Today! 503-694-2437 Facebook Linkedin HOME ABOUT ENGINEERING DESIGN RENEWABLE ENERGY DATA CENTERS OUTREACH CONTACT Data Center Modeling Services Data Center Owners and Operators Would you like to… …Save money on cooling costs? …Prevent your expensive IT equipment from overheating? …Delay the need to build another data center? …Build a new data center with the most optimal design? Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Modeling could be the answer. CFD provides a detailed 3-D analysis of how cold air is moving through a data center, identifying potential “hot spots” where equipment is receiving too little airflow. Thermal mapping can also find areas in a data center that are receiving more cold air than needed, wasting cooling and energy. Saving Money In a 2007 report to Congress on data center power consumption, the federal Environmental Protection Agency, recommended CFD modeling as a way to “optimize data center airflow configuration.” And in a survey of end users last year, the Uptime Institute reported that 47% used CFD to improve site infrastructure energy consumption. By optimizing the airflow in a room, it may be possible to reduce the number of Computer Room Air Conditioner (CRAC) units in operation. Every CRAC taken out of service can save around $50,000 annually in energy costs. (Calculated with a 30-ton CRAC at $0.10 per kWH.) Preventing Overheating After paying thousands or even millions of dollars on IT servers, routers, and other equipment, the last thing that any data center owner wants to see is damage to their investment caused by overheating. In many data centers, the failure of only one CRAC unit could lead to a catastrophic situation leading to significant loss of IT equipment as well as customer downtime. A CFD analysis of the room can pinpoint the areas where there is too little airflow and help in designing the most efficient solution to alleviate the potential issue. Delay Construction Building a new data center costs millions of dollars. If it is feasible, it makes far greater sense to retrofit your existing data center space to be able to handle the newer higher density server equipment for a fraction of the cost of a new room. By utilizing CFD modeling, it can be possible to extend the life of an existing data center with a retrofit that has an enormous payback over new construction. For a data center that supported a hospital operation located just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, Bradford was able to utilize CFD modeling to re-design half of the square footage of the original data center to create a space with double the electrical capacity, which allowed them to upgrade their equipment and utilize the same space for years to come. Design Optimization Traditional data center design worked fine when server racks were only loaded up to 2-4 kW, but it simply falls short with today’s blade server racks with upwards of 25kW. Without performing an in-depth look at the room airflow, it will not be possible to maximize the efficiency of the data center and support the maximum server load possible. By using CFD modeling, a data center can be designed to maximize the usage of the available floor space and create a room capable of handling the high density computing solutions that are becoming today’s standard. GET IN TOUCH WITH BRADFORD Want to learn more? Interested in starting a project? Let us know. We would love to hear from you. CONTACT BRADFORD CONSULTING ENGINEERS Copyright 2018 | All Rights Reserved | Created by Full Bloom Digital Facebook Linkedin