Rack cooling calculation?

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xexe

Member
Sep 30, 2013
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Hello,

Can't properly calculate how much cooling is needed for 10kW rack and how to properly calculate cfm, can someone help with calculations?
Would appreciate formulas to understand how is cooling calculated.
Setup mostly of 1U supermicro (2x e5-2690v2/64Gb/ssd).
 

Evan

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2016
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Kw/hr x ~3400 = BTU
A 10kw rack and if you want redundancy of power would imply your using 2 x 32amp 3-phase or 4 x 32amp single phase (220v)
But 35+ 1u dual e5-v2 system could easily be 10kw

at this density you really have to make sure that there is no obstructions, your cabling is super near, that your doors if having any 80%+ airflow and really get some air moving in front of that rack.

racks full of 2u high power servers are easy to cool, 1u servers a full rack is kind of ugly.

anyway to answer your question in a simple way about 1250CFM (about 25 degrees temp increase from from time back)
 
Last edited:

ecosse

Active Member
Jul 2, 2013
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HP used to have a downloadable rack design / power & cooling program (when I was a lad...) I expect its online now but that could give you the calcs (tho Evan seems to have the knowledge you need!
 

Evan

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2016
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598
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I remember that HPE program as well, I think your right it’s probably online.
If we were talking about HPE stuff I have some contacts that really know about this area if there is a specific question.

10kw real load is ok to cool thought going crazy with things like containment and so on, but still for moving volume of air and so on depending on room size of using raised floor you want 3+ feet below to be able to get the volume of cooling air moving, as you probably realize it volume that matters more than inlet temp, the inlet temp does not need to be freezing for sure.

it also depends is it one 10kw rack in a room of 50-100 racks or a whole room of 10kw racks.

Over my way a 10kw consuming rack costs $20k in power a year as well