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Optimizing data centers for energy efficiency plays a key role in the successful operation of modern data centers. One important factor is the proper management of airflow. In most air-cooled data centers, the required airflow for cooling of IT equipment is supplied from a raised floor to server racks through perforated tiles. In recent years, different approaches have been implemented to increase the efficiency of air delivery through tiles such as the use of directional tiles, adding understructure scoops or using air dampers [1]. Because the IT load of each rack in the data center is constantly changing due to the processing demands of the IT hardware at a given time, simultaneous manual tuning of the airflow at the panel level is impossible or at least impractical. The amount of airflow delivered to the Cold Aisle Containment (CAC) can be adjusted using Variable Airflow Panels (Dampers) that can be controlled remotely. In this study, we design and optimize a fuzzy control system to control the open area ratio of air dampers in order to adjust the local airflow rate in the ES2 data center. 

The dynamic nature of today’s data centers requires active monitoring and holistic management of all aspects of the facility, from the applications to the air conditioning. The most significant aspect of implementing a dynamic data center is the requirement to actively monitor and manage the infrastructure assets. It is vital to ensure information technology (IT) equipment has access to sufficient air (provisioned) at a proper temperature to assure their optimal and continues operation. Hot air recirculation, elevated fan speed, and hot spots are known consequences of an under-provisioned cold aisle. On the other hand, over-provisioning a cold aisle can lead to a significant loss in energy due to bypass of cooling air and leakages. Besides, the number of active servers in an aisle may be varied by load balancers due to short or long-term IT load changes. This demonstrates the need for an active airflow management scheme that is able to respond to airflow demand in different aisles of a data center. In this study, remotely controllable air dampers are implemented to regulate airflow delivery to a cold aisle containment (CAC) during workload changes in a data center. The energy saving opportunities are investigated and practical considerations are discussed.