It’s important to consider rack IT load densities in a given aisle, floor pressure, and the amount and direction of airflow through a given perforated panel design in order to achieve optimal cooling. There are many perforated airflow panel options available on the market today. The amount of cooling and pressure required depends on many factors, but the supply needs to be sufficient so that enough cold air comes up through perforated panels in cold aisles in front of server racks to keep them safely cooled - ideally, without overcooling the entire space. Raised floor systems in data centers are designed to work so cooling units pressurize the underfloor plenum with cold air. At the raised floor level, the importance of perforated floor panels and their ability to deliver cold supply air into the cold aisle is high. Once that’s in alignment, room level adjustments can be made to fully realize energy efficiency, increased capacity, and other returns on investment. Blocking these open spaces with under-rack panels made of flame-retardant material is an easy and cost-effective way to minimize air recirculation and reduce IT equipment inlet temperatures.Ĭorrectly implementing airflow management best practices at the rack, row, and raised floor level helps to properly match cooling capacity with IT load. If the air mixing is compounded across multiple rows of racks, more cooling units will have to run at higher fan speeds and lower set points to overcome this issue. This air recirculation causes several problems for the data center: increased intake temperatures, hot spots, and the longer-term potential for IT equipment failure. Although it’s usually only ½ to 2 inches in size, this space allows IT equipment exhaust air to travel under the rack and, ultimately, back into the IT equipment air inlets. Take a close look at the small space between the bottom of an IT rack and the top of the raised floor panels the rack sits on. ![]() This row-level airflow management technique also applies to floor-level improvements. While this article focuses on raised floor best practices, airflow should be managed at all levels in the data center - rack, row, room and raised floor - to fully capitalize on all these benefits. ![]() Making these changes are key to improving efficiency, increasing capacity, and lowering operating costs. By doing this, temperature set points can increase, fan speed can decrease, and cooling units can sometimes be powered off. More specifically, reducing the highest intake air temperatures so all intake temperatures are as low and even as possible. ![]() Before jumping into cost-effective raised floor suggestions, remember the goal of any airflow management initiative is to improve the intake air temperatures to IT equipment.
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