Benchmarking the Application of Detached Eddy Simulation Techniques in Data Center Server Flow Modelling using Stereoscopic Particle Image Velocimetry

The evolution and new trends in low-cost cloud computing services and growing data analysis loads on data centers keep increasing the power density of the servers as well as the global electricity consumption of data centers. The server component arrangement is mainly bounded by compactness of the device and can be somewhat overlooked. Both optical visualization and computational simulation techniques can be utilized to quantify complex turbulent flow fields inside the servers, and thus optimize thermal flows. The primary stage of a comprehensive research to enhance data center server cooling performance and energy efficiency is reported on here. A full-scale half-width 1U blade server, i.e., a rectangular fanned channel, 150 mm by 40 mm by 500 mm, air cooled by three parallel axial tube fans at the inlet is chosen as the base sever to be investigated using computational fluid dynamics CFD and stereoscopic particle image velocimetry PIV.