Numerical study on the thermal environment of UFAD system with solar chimney for the data center

To improve the thermal environment in the data center, a solar chimney was integrated with Under-floor Air Distribution (UFAD) system in the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software Airpak. By using the validated model, three types of solar chimney, such as solar chimney transversely over the hot and cold aisles, solar chimney lengthways above the cold or hot aisles, were simulated. The comparison between the model calculation result shows that all types of solar chimneys used in this paper has great potential in providing a better temperature and airflow distribution. Especially in the case of the solar chimney above the cold aisle, the temperature in upper zone of cold aisle can be decreased by 13°C, and the temperature field inside the rack is improved greatly without any additional power.