Air Conditioning Today’S Technology Rooms Require Precise, Stable Environments in Order for Sensitive Electronics to Operate Optimally
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Dening Quality. Building Comfort. Precision Air Conditioning Today’s technology rooms require precise, stable environments in order for sensitive electronics to operate optimally. Standard In addition, technology rooms may reduce comfort air conditioning is poorly suited for computing capacity as a protective measure, technology rooms, leading to system shut- if environmental conditions are not properly downs and component failures. Because controlled. This protective response results in precision air conditioning maintains reduced computational capacity for the owner. temperature and humidity within a very Standard comfort air conditioning is not designed narrow range, it provides the environmental to handle the heat load profile of critical purpose stability required by sensitive electronic areas, nor is it designed to provide the precise equipment, allowing your business to avoid temperature and humidity set point required expensive downtime. for these applications. Precision air conditioning systems are designed for close temperature and humidity control. They provide high reliability for PreciSion Air condiTioning year-round operation, with the ease of service, APPlicationS system flexibility and redundancy necessary to keep critical applications running 24 hours a day. TemPerature And humidiTy deSign Precision environmental control requirements condiTionS reach far beyond the confines of the traditional data center or computer room to encompass a larger suite of applications. Maintaining temperature and humidity design conditions is critical to the smooth operation of Typical1. applications that benefit from precision a data center or other technology room. Design air conditioning include: conditions% should be 68-77°F (20-25°C) and 40- 2. Medical equipment suites (MRI, CAT scan) 55 relative humidity. As damaging as the wrong Hospital facilities (operating, isolation ambient conditions can be, rapid temperature 3. rooms) swings can also have a negative effect on hardware 4. operation. This is one of the reasons hardware Clean rooms is left powered up, even when not processing 5. Laboratories data. AAON precision air conditioning systems 6. % Data centers are designed to maintain temperature at ±1°F 7. (0.56°C) and humidity at ±3-5 relative humidity, Server and computer rooms 24 hours a day, 8760 hours a year over a broad Telecommunications (wiring closets, switch range of ambient conditions. 8. gear rooms, cell sites) In contrast, most comfort systems% are designed to Printer/copier/CAD centers Why do i need PreciSion Air maintain 80°F (27°C) and 50 relative humidity only% during summer conditions of 95°F (35°C) and condiTioning? 40 relative humidity outdoor conditions. Usually there is no dedicated humidity control and the simple controllers cannot maintain the set point Information processing and uptime is critical to the tolerance required for temperature or humidity, functioning of today’s businesses. Therefore your allowing potentially harmful temperature and company’s health is dependent on the precision humidity swings to occur. air conditioning’s reliability. Technology rooms VAriABle loAdS produce an unusual, concentrated heat load, and at the same time, are very sensitive to changes in temperature and humidity. A temperature and/ The technology rooms of the past represented or humidity swing can produce many problems relatively constant power (heat) loads with including a complete system shutdown. This can constant airflow through the server. Today’s create huge costs for the company, depending on technology room loads are dynamic. The power the length of the interruption and the value of of a server can depend on the computational time and data lost. demand being applied to the server. As the server 2 6 5 power increases or decreases with computational PUE Value loading, the required airflow through the server 4 can also vary. Additionally, in an effort to improve 3 server resource utilization, server virtualization 2 is being commonly deployed, which can result in varying power demands. Precision air conditioning 1 systems need to provide variable cooling capacity and variable airflow to properly match the variable 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% power and variable airflows of today’s technology % IT Load rooms. Figure 1: energy uTilization Example PUE Curve AAon PreciSion Air condiTioning Energy efficiency is a key data center issue. The FeatureS more energy efficient the data center, the lower the on-going operating costs for the facilities’ users. With the rise of computing demands AAON units are available with a variety of energy and high density computational environments, saving options. efficient energy usage is extremely important. Power usage effectiveness (PUE) is a metric used Cooling Tower to determine the energy efficiency of a data center. PUE is determined by dividing the amount of power entering a data center by the power used to run the computer infrastructure within it. Water-Cooled Condenser The components of the PUE calculation look at the relationship between “Total Facility Power” (TFP) Compressor Waterside and “IT Equipment Power” (IEP). TFP is measured Economizer at the utility meter for the data center space and Evaporator includes• all of the components required to support the IT load including: Figure 2: Power components such as uninterruptible Waterside Economizer power supply (UPS) systems and power • distribution units (PDUs) • economizers Cooling elements such as air conditioners, ○○ • chillers and air handlers A water side economizer, as shown in Other infrastructure components such as Figure 2, uses the outside air in conjunction lighting with a refrigeration system. Instead of compressors, the outside air cools the IEP, or more simply IT Load, is the sum total water, which is then used to cool the air in of the power used by the facility’s computing ○○ the data center. components including servers, storage devices and networking equipment. PUE is expressed as An air side economizer, as shown in Figure a ratio, with overall data center energy efficiency 3, uses the outside climate to cool the data increasing the closer the number comes to one center. This outside air is distributed to which indicates that a greater portion of the the cabinets via the existing air delivery power required by the facility is used to drive the system, except no mechanical activity is IT equipment. Efficient centers will often have PUE needed for heat rejection. values of two or less, as shown in Figure 1. 3 Outside Air Damper Outside Air Flow It is more efficient than a VAV box reheat system because it eliminates the need for a separate heat source to dehumidify the air, Evaporator reducing heating costs. • energy recovery Return air damper o○ Return Air Fow The AAONAIRE energy recovery system can boost the savings of both the economizer o○ and dehumidification systems. Relief Damper By preheating and/or precooling the Figure 3: outside supply air with energy from Air Side Economizer exhaust air the economizer function can • dehumidification be used for more hours during the year recycling valuable heating and cooling o○ o○ dollars. Return air bypass dampers, as shown in When outside humidity is high, the Figure 4, can be tied to a humidity sensor AAONAIRE energy recovery system and when more dehumidification is o○ dehumidifies the outside air. This needed more return air is bypassed. greatly reduces the latent load on the air By bypassing some air around the conditioning equipment. Air conditioners cooling coil, the air that passes through use much energy to dehumidify moist the evaporator coil is dehumidified by airstreams. Excessive moisture in a data a greater amount. By increasing the center can result in hardware failure and dehumidification of the airstream and critical downtime. Additionally during using the bypassed return air to reheat heat the winter, when outside air is dry, the it, return air bypass offers a very efficient AAONAIRE energy recovery system Evaporator Return Air Bypass humidifies the incoming dry outside air. and cost effectiveCoil humidity control option. Reheat Coil Filters Economizer This result is increased uptime, reduced humidification and dehumidification requirements and year-round energy dollars saved. Outside Air The psychrometric chart of Figure 5 shows the temperature Compressor Access and humidity moderating affect of the AAONAIRE F energy recovery system. ˚ Return Air - Supply Air p m e % T This Figure assumesn o Figure 4: ti ra u a 75 effective totalat , S nt oi Return Air Bypass & Modulating Hot Gas Reheat energy wheel. P ew o○ D b, ul B et W For humidity control under all conditions, the AAON modulating hot gas reheat system recycles heat energy from the compressor and uses this energy to precisely control indoor humidity while Dry Bulb Temperature - ˚F maintaining the desired supply air temperature. Figure 5: Psychrometric Chart 4 The center point of the chart represents the support equipment, and motors. There is very return air conditions entering the AAONAIRE little latent load since there are few people energy recovery system. The differing outside and limited outside air. The required SHR of an air conditions, represented by circles, are shown air conditioner to match this heat load profile at various points on the psychrometric chart. is very high, 0.95-0.99. AAON precision air The resultant air properties entering the HVAC conditioning is designed to meet these very equipment are represented by diamonds. In all high sensible heat ratios. cases, heating