Experimental Study of Transient Hydraulic Characteristics for Liquid Cooled Data Center Deployment

Increasing demands for cloud-based computing and storage, Internet-of-Things, and machine learning-based applications have necessitated the utilization of more efficient cooling technologies. Direct-to-chip liquid cooling using cold plates has proven to be one of the most efficient methods to dissipate the high heat fluxes of modern high-power CPUs and GPUs. While the published literature has well-documented research on the thermal aspects of direct liquid cooling, a detailed account of transient hydraulic investigation is still missing. In this experiment, a total of four 52U racks with four high-power TTV-servers (Thermal Test Vehicles) in each rack were designed and deployed. Each server consists of eight GPU TTVs and six NV switch heaters. Each of the two racks has a different vendor rack manifold and cooling loop modules (CLM). A 450 kW coolant distribution unit (CDU) is used to supply 25% propylene glycol coolant to these racks. Each rack has its own rack-level flow control valve to maintain the same flow rate. The present study provides an in-depth analysis of hydraulic transients when rack-level flow control valves are used with and without flow control. The operating conditions of the CDU are varied for different parameters, such as a constant flow rate, constant differential pressure, and constant pump speed. Furthermore, hydraulic transient is examined when the cooling loop modules are decommissioned from the rack one by one. The effect of this step-by-step decommissioning is assessed on the CDU operation and other racks. The pressure drop-based control strategy has been developed to maintain the same flow rate in the remaining servers in the rack when some cooling loop modules are decommissioned.