Geothermal cooling for data centers
department or school: Applied Science, Faculty of
department or school: Engineering, School of (Okanagan)
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCO
creator: Chanduri, Sai Ram
issued: 2020-12-10T18:25:38Z
issued: 2020
related degree: Master of Applied Science - MASc
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Although geothermal energy is widely used for residential and commercial air-conditioning, there has not been much research done to employ geothermal energy and for data center (DC) cooling. Due to the absence of heating loop and a continuous need for cooling the servers, it has proven difficult to develop a DC cooling system which operates solely on geothermal heat exchange. The primary objective of this research was to investigate the thermal feasibility of developing an environment friendly geo-exchange cooling solution for data centers with smaller capacities. The cooling system detailed in this thesis discusses the underground as a heat sink, and the transfer of heat from the data server room to the underground by means of air-water heat exchange. After developing a few geothermal well designs, a numerical model was designed to examine the heat transfer between the rejected hot DC water and the cold well water. The thermal performance of the geothermal well is then analyzed under steady-state and transient conditions. An analytical approach was used to investigate the thermal behavior of the well under steady-state conditions, whereas both analytical and numerical approaches were used to study the heat transfer characteristics under transient conditions. Numerical simulations and heat transfer calculations were done to establish the trends of heat transfer rate with various sizing parameters of the well. These analyses suggest that the well can be operated only under transient conditions and hence, a multiple-well model is devised and the heat transfer calculations are performed for the same using analytical approach. The theoretical and numerical analyses thus conducted were used to infer the feasibility of the developed cooling solution.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/76732
note: GEOTHERMAL COOLING FOR DATA CENTERS bySai Ram Chanduri B.E. in Mechanical Engineering, Osmania University, 2017A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF APPLIED SCIENCE inTHE COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES(Mechanical Engineering)THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan)December 2020 © Sai Ram Chanduri, 2020 The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, a thesis/dissertation entitled: Geothermal Cooling for Data Centers submitted by Sai Ram Chanduri in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering Examining Committee: Dr. Sunny Li, Faculty of Applied Science Supervisor Dr. Sumi Siddiqua, Faculty of Applied Science Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Ernest Goh, Faculty of Applied Science Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Kasun Hewage, Faculty of Applied Science University Examiner i Abstract Although geothermal energy is widely used for residential and commercial air-conditioning, there has not been much research done to employ geothermal energy and for data center (DC) cooling. Due to the absence of heating loop and a continuous need for cooling the servers, it has proven difficult to develop a DC cooling system which operates solely on geothermal heat exchange. The primary objective of this research was to investigate the thermal feasibility of developing an environment friendly geo-exchange cooling solution for data centers with smaller capacities. The cooling system detailed in this thesis discusses the underground as a heat sink, and the transfer of heat from the data server room to the underground by means of air-water heat exchange. After developing a few geothermal well designs, a numerical model was designed to examine the heat transfer between the rejected hot DC water and the cold well water. The thermal performance of the geothermal well is then analyzed unde…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2021-02
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0395216
language: eng
degree discipline: Mechanical Engineering
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/76732