Cooling system monitoring
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Solution Overview
Problem
Data centers face challenges in maintaining optimal cooling efficiency and identifying the cause of abnormal temperature fluctuations in equipment racks, leading to potential operational failures and increased power consumption.
Innovation Solution
A method involving sensors to measure air flow temperature, pressure, humidity, and electrical power consumption, which updates a computer model to detect deviations and transmit alert messages to display modules on racks, indicating the cause of temperature deviations and allowing for timely corrective action.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If cooling power is increased to ensure adequate cooling to all racks, then temperature control reliability is improved, but power consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system continuously monitors inlet air temperature at each rack and uses this feedback to dynamically adjust cooling operations. When temperature deviations are detected, the system identifies the specific rack and transmits alert messages, enabling targeted cooling adjustments rather than blanket increases to all racks, thus maintaining reliability while reducing overall power consumption.
Solution Approach 2:
The cooling system is divided into individually monitorable rack units, each with its own temperature monitoring and alert capability. This segmentation allows the system to address cooling issues at the specific rack level rather than system-wide, enabling precise control that improves temperature reliability without unnecessarily increasing total cooling power consumption.
2Loss of energy
If air inlet temperature of a rack exceeds desired limit, then cooling efficiency is reduced, but the cause is not obvious and quick solution requires increasing cooling power to all racks
Solution Approach 1:
A computer model acts as an intermediary between temperature sensors and operators. The model processes temperature data from multiple racks, identifies abnormal patterns, and generates diagnostic information that pinpoints the specific rack and potential cause of cooling inefficiency. This intermediary system transforms raw sensor data into actionable diagnostic insights, making troubleshooting easy without requiring blanket increases to all rack cooling.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces manual troubleshooting and system-wide cooling increases with an automated computer-based diagnostic system. The computer model analyzes temperature data, identifies anomalies, and transmits specific alert messages to affected racks, substituting mechanical/system-wide cooling adjustments with intelligent software-based diagnosis and targeted responses.
3Reliability
If AHUs operate at higher power to provide adequate cooling to all racks, then temperature coverage is improved, but power consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system transitions from static, system-wide cooling operations to dynamic, rack-specific cooling control. By continuously monitoring inlet air temperature at each rack and using computer model analysis to identify specific racks needing attention, the system dynamically adjusts cooling operations only where needed, maintaining comprehensive temperature coverage while minimizing overall AHU power consumption.
Data Source
AI summary
Automatic monitoring of a cooling system and providing warnings of abnormal operation. The cooling system includes one or more air handling units to provide air flow cooling to a plurality of racks of computer equipment, each rack having a display module for indicating an inlet air temperature of the rack and an alert message. The monitoring includes: receiving, from a plurality of sensors, measurements of: an air flow temperature provided to each of the racks; and an air pressure, temperature and relative humidity difference across, and an electrical power consumption of, the air handling unit(s); updating a computer model of the cooling system with the received measurements; and for each rack, if a level or a rate of change of the inlet air temperature is outside of a preset range for the rack, transmitting an alert message to the display module to indicate a cause based on the computer model.