Upgradeable, modular data center cooling apparatus
First Claim
1. A data center comprising:
- a room;
a chilled fluid supply pipe within said room;
a chilled fluid return pipe within said room; and
a plurality of fluid couplings connected with said chilled fluid supply pipe and said chilled fluid return pipe each of which is configured to connect to either an air conditioner or a liquid conditioning unit.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A data center is configured using alternating rows of racks containing heat-generating electronic devices and air conditioners. Fluid, such as water or a refrigerant, for the air conditioners is supplied through pluming below a raised floor, such as those commonly found in current data centers. Attached to this plumbing are standard fluid couplings configured to couple to either air conditioners or liquid cooling units. These air conditioners and liquid cooling units use the same fluid so that they may share the plumbing. As data center migrates to liquid-cooled racks, a fraction of the air conditioners are replaced with liquid conditioning units in such a way that the data center contains both air-cooled and liquid-cooled racks without substantial reduction in efficiency of the air-cooling system. Since the air conditioners and liquid conditioning units use the same couplings and the same fluid, no infrastructure change is required.
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Citations
24 Claims
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1. A data center comprising:
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a room;
a chilled fluid supply pipe within said room;
a chilled fluid return pipe within said room; and
a plurality of fluid couplings connected with said chilled fluid supply pipe and said chilled fluid return pipe each of which is configured to connect to either an air conditioner or a liquid conditioning unit. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A data center comprising:
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a room;
a chilled fluid supply pipe within said room;
a chilled fluid return pipe within said room; and
a plurality of fluid couplings connected with said chilled fluid supply pipe and said chilled fluid return pipe each of which is configured to connect to either an air conditioner or a liquid conditioning unit. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A data center comprising:
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a room;
a chilled fluid supply pipe within said room;
a chilled fluid return pipe within said room; and
a plurality of fluid couplings connected with said chilled fluid supply pipe and said chilled fluid return pipe each of which is configured to connect to either an air conditioner or a liquid conditioning unit. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19)
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20. A method for configuring servers within a data center comprising the steps of:
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a. providing a room;
b. providing a chilled fluid supply pipe within said room;
c. providing a chilled fluid return pipe within said room;
d. attaching a plurality of fluid couplings to said chilled fluid supply pipe and said chilled fluid return pipe, wherein said each of said connectors is configured to connect to either an air conditioner or a liquid conditioning unit;
e. providing a first and second air-cooled server;
f. providing a first and second air conditioner, connected to said chilled fluid supply pipe and to said chilled fluid return pipe through said fluid couplings;
g. configuring said first air-cooled server such that chilled air exiting said first air conditioner enters air intakes of said first air-cooled server;
h. configuring said second air conditioner such that warm air exiting said first air-cooled server enters air intakes of said second air conditioner; and
i. configuring said second air-cooled server such that chilled air exiting said first air conditioner enters air intakes of said second air-cooled server. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22, 23, 24)
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Specification