Data Centre Cooling - The Issues (Part 2)

The Importance of Blanking Panels

In the first part of our Data Centre Cooling - The Issues blog, we looked at adopting a hot aisle / cold aisle configuration and sealing floor and cable openings using KoldLok grommets. Today we are going to explore the importance of blanking panels and the part they play in improving airflow management within the Data Centre environment.

Air-intake temperature is a known significant factor in the reliability of IT equipment, with raised intake temperatures leading to equipment failure and expensive downtime. A major cause for this rise in temperature is hot exhaust air recirculating from the back of the server rack, and finding its way to the intakes at the front through open, unused rack space.

Upsite Technologies, Inc commissioned an independent, third party organisation - Innovative Research, Inc - to perform a study using two-dimensional, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling. The results proved that not only did the use of blanking panels have an effect on air-intake temperatures, but the type of panel used also had an effect.

The results* showed that:

• The servers in the cabinet without blanking panels drew in 40% of their total required airflow volume from the hot exhaust air originating in the back of the server cabinet.
• Blanking panels with horizontal gaps between adjacent blanking panels, and between blanking panels and IT equipment, reduced the volume of hot exhaust air recirculation to 19%. A 53% improvement over a server cabinet with no blanking panels.
• HotLok blanking panels that have no gaps between them reduced the volume of hot exhaust air recirculation to 0%. A 47% improvement over a server cabinet using blanking panels with a horizontal gap, and a 100% improvement over a server cabinet with no blanking panels.
• Blanking panels with horizontal gaps reduced the average temperature by 20% over the use of no blanking panels.
• More significant, blanking panels with no horizontal gaps reduced the average temperature by 37% over the use of no blanking panels. The average air temperature at the air intake was the same as the conditioned air from the floor grate. All air drawn into the equipment was conditioned air.

* Taken from the white paper, Two-Dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis of Blanking Solutions by Lars Storng, P.E., Kailash C. Karki, Ph.D., and Berkeley T. Merchant.

EDP Europe offer three blanking panel solutions EziBlank, HotLok and PlenaFill, for more details on these please visit our website www.edpeurope.com. If you would like to discuss blanking panels further or obtain a copy of the Blanking Panel White Paper commissioned by Upsite Technologies, Inc please e-mail us at sales@edpeurope.com. In the next part of our Data Centre Cooling - The Issues blog we will look at a product designed to eliminate isolated hot spots.