[Outages-discussion] [outages] Equinix CH1 Overheating

[Clayton Zekelman]

At 03:07 PM 2024-01-15, David Eddleman via Outages-discussion wrote:
>"Reuse the ducting" doesn't work well. The cold air has to be blown 
>to specific rows for the datacenter to work. Remember hot row, cold 
>row. Racks of servers make great windbreaks since they're giant 
>blocks, blocking any blowing air, so the cold air has to come in via 
>the cold row ducting to be effective. Simply opening the doors and 
>bringing fans in only slightly reduces the ambient temperatures, but 
>it doesn't get cold air where it needs to go, as heat simply flows 
>in the direction of least resistance to fill a void. Plus depending 
>upon the failure within the chiller system the whole system may shut 
>down to prevent the system from eating itself during a malfunction. 
>Even though the heat exchanger isn't working, the blower motors may 
>have a physical disconnect in the event of said event. Residential 
>HVAC systems have safeties that can disconnect the whole system in 
>the event condensation drains are clogged, for example.
>
>Datacenters in Greenland have other problems as well, despite being 
>in an arctic environment for many parts of the year. Snow is 
>actually a fantastic insulator, so you still need HVAC even when the 
>environment is seriously cold outside. You need a way to pump cold 
>air in and hot air out.
>


When we build a facility, the design we use has a mixing chamber 
where the cold air supply from the internal air handler returns can 
be combined with filtered outside air.  We use actuators to control 
the dampers, and a variable speed fan wall with one way louvers to 
draw the air in. We also use humidity sensors to make sure we're not 
introducing too much humidity or drying the air out too much.  In the 
facilities where we did install humidifiers, we never have ended up 
needing them (must be due to our climate).  We have pressure relief 
vents with weighted louvers to exhaust any excess air that we draw in 
when in free cooling mode.  It seems to work well, and we track all 
the state info on our BMS to make sure nothing gets out of 
whack.  The whole setup saves us a bunch on electricity, as we almost 
never use mechanical cooling in the winter months.



-- 

Clayton Zekelman
Managed Network Systems Inc. (MNSi)
3363 Tecumseh Rd. E
Windsor, Ontario
N8W 1H4

tel. 519-985-8410
fax. 519-985-8409        
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