Thermal Performance Metrics for Arranging Forced Air Cooled Servers in a Data Processing Cabinet

Abstract

The optimal arrangement of various components in a standard data processing cabinet layout is investigated through computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer. Relevant heat transfer performance of candidate designs is measured by newly proposed metrics for systems level electronics cooling. The results are then extended to define a favorable power dissipation profile, the most favorable of which was found to be one where the power dissipation increases in the vertical direction.