IT in Manufacturing


Refrigerant based cooling for the data centre

May 2012 IT in Manufacturing

APC by Schneider Electric has announced the InRow OA and refrigerant distribution unit (RDU) pumped refrigerant cooling system, which expands APC’s product line by providing an energy efficient, refrigerant based cooling solution for data centre environments. “Data centre densities continue to increase and efficiency concerns encourage customers to maximise all the available space for physical infrastructure,” says Dave Guidette, senior vice president at APC by Schneider Electric. “The new APC InRow OA and RDU provide data centre managers with increased flexibility by eliminating the need to remove or break-up racks to implement a row-based cooling architecture to meet the needs of higher density loads.”

Ideal for medium and high density applications, the new APC InRow OA captures up to 27 kW of hot IT exhaust air at the source, neutralises it and discharges cool, ambient air back to the IT space. The OA includes integrated thermal containment, which eliminates mixing of hot and cold air streams for improved cooling predictability. Modular construction, variable speed fans and active response controls are all integrated into one high efficiency system. The overhead design requires zero whitespace, because it can be mounted on a rack or suspended from the ceiling above the hot aisle, improving flexibility and the ability to adapt to existing data centre environments.

This refrigerant-based system has been developed to eliminate the threat from water leaks in close proximity to IT equipment. The refrigerant used in this modular, pumped system is R134a, a non-toxic solution that poses no threat to IT equipment in the event of a leak and has no ozone depletion potential.

The RDU is a refrigerant distribution unit capable of providing 160 kW of heat rejection to the APC InRow OA cooling units, its modular construction, variable speed pumps, and active response controls are integrated into the highly efficient variable volume pumping system. The RDU has the ability to modulate capacity from 0-100 percent with no minimum loading requirements and may be placed in the IT environment or in an adjacent location to increase whitespace utilisation for IT equipment. Other key benefits of the InRow OA include:

* Ability to maximise available floor space for IT equipment.

* Address concerns of water in the data centre.

* 30-50% more efficient than traditional raised floor data centre cooling.

* Elimination of hot spots caused by high density deployments.

* Flexibility to deploy and redeploy cooling.

* Simple to install minimising initial investment.

For more information contact Jacqui Gradwell, Schneider Electric SA, +27 (0)11 254 6400, jacqui.gradwell@schneider-electric.com, www.schneider-electric.co.za



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