Three main points of connection design of cooling system

The special design and quality testing of the cooling system must be completed in the early stage, ensuring the convenience of maintenance and the safety and reliability of the server.

According to the data, the PUE value of our machine room (power supply efficiency) is higher, with an average of 2.5 and above, except for the 44 percent of computer consumption, the refrigeration system alone accounts for 38 percent of total power.
So operators are taking great pains to fill the energy hole of the engine room.
Big data and the computer industry's giants are used or is testing a variety of different room cooling methods, including flat to the whole room move, built on such as Iceland, or where the temperature is relatively low in the northeast of our country.
All the techniques such as immersion liquid cooling, microfluidic cooling, water cooling and other technologies are also highly anticipated.
For most data center operators, however, these new technologies have many limitations.
Before these technologies can be popularized, conventional liquid cooling is still the most practical way of cooling energy.
On the one hand, the cooling efficiency of water cooling is much higher than that used in most data centers.
On the other hand, the late maintenance of the liquid cooling system generally requires only some cooling fluid, so the stability of the whole system depends on the reliability and safety of the pipeline.
In other words, as long as the pipeline and connector design and quality testing can be improved in the early stage, it can greatly reduce the problems encountered in the maintenance of the data center.
At the beginning of the upgrade of the engine room refrigeration system, operators should begin to consider the key and fragile link of pipeline joints.
Connect and disconnect the connector is an important part, because of the unqualified joints is likely to be produced in the process of actual operation and the repeated use of the cooling fluid leakage, resulting in electronic parts damaged and frequent maintenance cleaning, resulting in waste of resources.
And the design unreasonable connector can not fit with the demand of data center operation and maintenance, which leads to unnecessary trouble later.
Operator needs to be done in the prophase of joint compression resistance to chemical corrosion test, and observe the actual performance of the joint in the prototype test, and based on the computer room in architecture and space limitations to consider the custom design.
Design considerations for data center line connector
1. Material selection
The selection of pipeline connector material requires two aspects: chemical resistance and cost performance.
In the aspect of chemical resistance, the medium in the pipeline needs to match the material of the joint, so that the equipment can be protected and sustainable.
In some cases, the machine room may have some materials that are not suitable for liquid cooling, such as aluminum cold plate and brass joint.
And can use a sub subject is chrome plating, stainless steel, corrosion resistant materials such as glass fiber filled polypropylene to replace, and globe valve with complex geometrical design can use a wide range of heat-resistant, strong chemical resistance of polysulfone.
Considering the height of the joint surface with the required sealing performance, joint also can double seal design, equipped with low friction o-rings, and USES the epdm to achieve good sealing and chemical resistance, to further ensure the stability of the surface system.
From the perspective of value, data center operators are mostly used in the surface system used in the main body for the custom of the metal connector, because of its resistance to high temperature and high pressure, large flow, strong wear resistance characteristics conform to the data center module connected to equipment activities such as a quality requirements.
Custom metal joint use of mechanical processing, can be designed and manufactured in a short time out with different external dimensions, threaded connector specifications, port form, traffic, bespoke requests to meet different data center.
In fact, in low-pressure environment, high performance plastic is also a cost-effective choice.
Plastics are lightweight, stable, and polysulfone materials are no less resistant to chemical and abrasion than metals.
The connector of molding process can also realize one-piece end design, which can make the assembly time short and easy to install, thus achieving higher efficiency and lower maintenance cost.
2. Optimization operation
The liquid cooling system is very large, so the modularization of the system can be very convenient for maintenance, just to disconnect the problem module for maintenance.
Using fast and iterated connectors not only can achieve modularity, but also can improve staff efficiency by simplifying operation, making installation and maintenance of equipment more convenient.
In order to help the staff to implement one-handed operation, the joints need to be equipped with the thumb keys that meet the ergonomics of the human body, and can be automatically flipped open when disconnecting, without the traditional ball valve closing device to increase maintenance efficiency.
In order to further optimize operation, the joint can also add different color components in the manufacturing process are identified, provide clear visual cues for maintenance personnel, greatly reduce the system damage caused by the connection error and downtime.
The joint can also be coated with anti-skid soft plastic, which can be used to increase the impact resistance and prolong the service life of the connector.
Another important step to consider is the space left in the machine room for the water cooling module.
Joints can be specially designed to ensure that all thumbkeys can be pointed in one direction, which is both beautiful and maximized to meet the limited requirements of the space, without affecting the operation.
3. Safety and stability
One of the biggest challenges for the data center liquid-cooling pipeline is to ensure that no cooling droplets are leaking.
The traditional connector can not maintain a liquid residue when it is disconnected because it has a spring and other prominent parts and joint grooves.
To avoid residual cooled droplet caused by leakage of server racks fault, joint is with flat section and the external structure, and through the tests of high strength to achieve the quality of the resistance to high frequency repeatedly plug.
The integrated valves in the connector need to be designed with a specific design - for example, the quick action of a non-drip valve is more effective in preventing liquid dripping than the cone valve.
Axis has a certain tolerance valve can also greatly improve joint performance, to make the valve in the case of incomplete connection remains liquid without leak full circulation, so as to ensure the effective operation of equipment, protection of electronic equipment and data.