Effectiveness-weighted control of cooling system components

• US 10,244,665 B2
• Filed: 12/07/2015
• Issued: 03/26/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Campbell, Levi A., Chu, Richard C., David, Milnes P., Ellsworth, Jr., Michael J., Iyengar, Madhusudan K., Schmidt, Roger R., Simons, Robert E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Vu, Vu A
• Application Number:
  US14/960,862
• Publication Number:
  US 20160088777A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,205 Days
• Field of Search: 700300
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 15/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 23/1932 to control the temperature of a plurality of spaces
• CPC Class Codes: H05K 7/2079 within rooms for removing heat from cabinets
• CPC Class Codes: H05K 7/20836 Thermal management, e.g. server temperature control

Abstract

Energy efficient control of cooling system cooling of an electronic system is provided based, in part, on weighted cooling effectiveness of the components. The control includes automatically determining speed control settings for multiple adjustable cooling components of the cooling system. The automatically determining is based, at least in part, on weighted cooling effectiveness of the components of the cooling system, and the determining operates to limit power consumption of at least the cooling system, while ensuring that a target temperature associated with at least one of the cooling system or the electronic system is within a desired range by provisioning, based on the weighted cooling effectiveness, a desired target temperature change among the multiple adjustable cooling components of the cooling system. The provisioning includes provisioning applied power to the multiple adjustable cooling components via, at least in part, the determined control settings.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

providing a cooling system comprising multiple different cooling components, the multiple different cooling components being separately adjustable, and the cooling system being provided to cool an electronic system;

providing a controller for the cooling system, the controller;

automatically determining control settings for the multiple different cooling components of the cooling system, the automatically determining control settings being based, at least in part, on respective values of weighted cooling effectiveness of the multiple different cooling components of the cooling system, at least two cooling components of the multiple different cooling components having different respective values of weighted cooling effectiveness, and the automatically determining control settings providing determined control settings;

wherein the automatically determining control settings operates to limit power consumption of at least the cooling system, while ensuring that a target temperature associated with at least one of the cooling system or the electronic system is within a desired range by provisioning, based at least in part on the respective values of weighted cooling effectiveness, a desired target temperature change among the multiple different cooling components, the provisioning including provisioning applied power to the multiple different cooling components via, at least in part, the determined control settings;

wherein the automatically determining control settings comprises automatically determining speed control settings for the multiple different cooling components of the cooling system to provide determined speed settings, each cooling component n of the multiple different cooling components comprising an adjustable speed control, and wherein the provisioning includes provisioning the applied power to the multiple different cooling components via, at least in part, the determined speed settings;

wherein the automatically determining control settings further comprises ascertaining the desired target temperature change for a particular time to facilitate maintaining the target temperature within the desired range, and obtaining a weighting ratio of cooling effectiveness of cooling component n to a total cooling effectiveness of the multiple different cooling components, and a proportional gain for cooling component n of the multiple different cooling components and, based at least in part thereon, determining the speed control settings for the multiple different cooling components of the cooling system to achieve the desired target temperature change; and

wherein the proportional gain for adjustable cooling component n is, in part, a function of a measured time constant (τ

_n) associated with changes in cooling component n.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein cooling effectiveness of a cooling component n of the multiple different cooling components comprises a ratio of a range of achievable target temperature changes to a range of power consumption of the cooling component n.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the provisioning comprises ascertaining a weighting ratio of cooling effectiveness of a cooling component n of the multiple different cooling components to a total cooling effectiveness of the multiple different cooling components, and provisioning a portion of the applied power to the cooling component n based, at least in part, on the ascertained weighting ratio.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the ascertaining the desired target temperature change is dynamically determined, and wherein the obtaining the weighting ratio for cooling component n of the multiple different cooling components comprises predetermining the weighting ratio by employing a single range approximation between a set minimum speed control setting and a set maximum speed control setting, or multiple sub-range approximations between the set minimum speed control setting and the set maximum speed control setting.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the ascertaining the desired target temperature change is dynamically determined, and wherein the obtaining the weighting ratio for cooling component n of the multiple different cooling components is dynamically derived at runtime over the range of speed control settings of adjustable cooling component n.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the obtaining the weighting ratio comprises obtaining a weighting ratio of cooling effectiveness of cooling component n to total power consumption of the multiple different cooling components, plus power consumption of the electronic system being cooled by the cooling system.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the cooling effectiveness of cooling component n of the multiple different cooling components of the cooling system is determined based, at least in part, on variations in power consumed by the cooling component n with speed control setting changes thereto, and variations in the targeted temperature with variations in speed control settings of the adjustable cooling component n.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least two cooling components of the multiple different cooling components having the different respective values of weighted cooling effectiveness are different types of cooling components.

9. A method comprising:

providing a cooling system comprising multiple different cooling components, the multiple different cooling components being separately adjustable, and the cooling system being provided to cool an electronic system;

providing a controller for the cooling system, the controller;

automatically determining control settings for the multiple different cooling components of the cooling system, the automatically determining control settings being based, at least in part, on respective values of weighted cooling effectiveness of the multiple different cooling components of the cooling system, at least two cooling components of the multiple different cooling components having different respective values of weighted cooling effectiveness, and the automatically determining control settings providing determined control settings;

wherein the automatically determining control settings operates to limit power consumption of at least the cooling system, while ensuring that a target temperature associated with at least one of the cooling system or the electronic system is within a desired range by provisioning, based at least in part on the respective values of weighted cooling effectiveness, a desired target temperature change among the multiple different cooling components, the provisioning including provisioning applied power to the multiple different cooling components via, at least in part, the determined control settings;

wherein the automatically determining control settings comprises automatically determining speed control settings for the multiple different cooling components of the cooling system to provide determined speed settings, each cooling component n of the multiple different cooling components comprising an adjustable speed control, and wherein the provisioning includes provisioning the applied power to the multiple different cooling components via, at least in part, the determined speed settings;

wherein the automatically determining control settings further comprises ascertaining the desired target temperature change for a particular time to facilitate maintaining the target temperature within the desired range, and obtaining a weighting ratio of cooling effectiveness of cooling component n to a total cooling effectiveness of the multiple different cooling components, and a proportional gain for cooling component n of the multiple different cooling components and, based at least in part thereon, determining the speed control settings for the multiple different cooling components of the cooling system to achieve the desired target temperature change; and

further comprising obtaining at least one additional gain term comprising at least one of an integral gain for cooling component n or a differential gain for cooling component n, and using the at least one additional gain term in determining, based at least in part thereon, the speed control settings for the multiple different cooling components of the cooling system.