The effect of layout of finned tube heat exchangers in a novel cooling system on the thermal environment in data centers

Data centers undertake transfer, calculation, and store of important information, whose suitable thermal environment is necessary for the safe and reliable operation of information technology (IT) equipment. However, in case of the emergency failure or power outage of the air-conditioning system, the inappropriate thermal environment cannot keep the proper operation of IT equipment. Therefore, a novel cooling system is proposed to maintain the thermal environment of server rooms, in which the liquid nitrogen as refrigerant flows into the spiral finned tube heat exchanger (FTHE) by phase changing to take away indoor heat. The effect of horizontal spacings and heights of the FTHE on the thermal environment are investigated numerically. The results display that the indoor air temperature is divided by FTHE. When the height of FTHE is 2.6~2.9m, the higher the FTHE, the more uniform the indoor temperature distribution. When the FTHE is higher than 3.2 m, the maximum temperature of the heat source is more than 62.6°C, exceeding the temperature tolerance limit. In addition, if space permits, the dislocation layout and the fixed layout can be selected, which perform well in both temperature uniformity and heat source cooling. This investigation provides support for the arrangement of the novel cooling system.