Experimental investigation of the vapor-compression cooling system in a data center: energy and exergy analysis.

The growth of the electronic government and the increase in the number of internet service providers has led to the development of data centers. A major piece of equipment used in these centers is the cooling system, which is responsible for the continuous exhaust of heat generated by the equipment in the data center. Given the high energy consumption of these systems, their optimization is of great importance. Due to the significance of identifying the sources of energy inefficiency in system optimization, in the present study, first, a sample in-row data center cooling system (was manufactured by authors) is placed inside the deigned setup test room, and its performance is investigated. Subsequently, it undergoes thermodynamic and exergy analyses using a model created in EES software. The effects of changes in the evaporator and condenser temperatures, the superheat (∆Tsuperheat) and sub-cooled (∆Tsub-cooled) temperature differences, and the ambient temperature on the energetic and exergetic performance of the cycle are evaluated. Under the temperature conditions specified in this research, the COP and exergy efficiency of the system were obtained 3.47 and 19.5%, respectively. Moreover, it was determined that a rise in the evaporator temperature increases the COP and decreases the exergy efficiency of the system, while a decrease in the condenser temperature improves both. A 30° reduction in the operator's temperature in all different condenser temperatures led to a 10% increase in the system's exergy efficiency. Additionally, lowering the condenser temperature from 323 to 313 K resulted in approximately a 10% increase in the system's exergy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]