Modeling and Control for Cooling Management of Data Centers with Hot Aisle Containment

In traditional raised-floor data center design with hot aisle and cold aisle separation, the cooling efficiency suffers from recirculation resulting from the mixing of cool air from the Computer Room Air Conditioning (CRAC) units and the hot exhaust air exiting from the back of the server racks. To minimize recirculation and hence increase cooling efficiency, hot aisle containment has been employed in an increasing number of data centers. Based on the underlying heat transfer principles, we present in this paper a dynamic model for cooling management in both open and contained environment, and propose decentralized model predictive controllers (MPC) for control of the CRAC units. One approach to partition a data center into overlapping CRAC zones of influence is discussed. Within each zone, the CRAC unit blower speed and supply air temperature are adjusted by a MPC controller to regulate the rack inlet temperatures, while minimizing the cooling power consumption. The proposed decentralized cooling control approach is validated in a production data center with hot aisles contained by plastic strips. Experimental results demonstrate both its stability and ability to reject various disturbances.