WP#73 - Fluid Connector Best Practices for Liquid-Cooled Data Centers

11 May, 2017 | White Paper

Editors: David Vranish, CPC – Colder Products Company Chris Chapman, Aavid Thermalloy Tahir Cader, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Contributors: Pat McGinn, CoolIT Systems Nicolas Monnier, Staubli Andy Wasielewski, CEJN

Liquid cooling has become an established medium for removing heat from the world’s top supercomputers, high-end gaming PCs, automotive vehicles, and industrial equipment. It offers very high heat removal rates, and more Information Technology Equipment (ITE) providers are leveraging that performance in advancing compute power. This makes the user who installs, maintains, and services the equipment an important player in the future of liquid cooling systems. Fluid connectors provide these users with a useful mechanism for connecting, disconnecting, and rerouting fluid throughout compute cluster installations.
 

Many advancements have been made in the industry relating to fluid connectors and organizations are investing a great deal of engineering resources in developing fluid connectors that are suitable for data center usage. The Green Grid Association (TGG)—a consortium that works to improve ITE and data center resource efficiency worldwide—investigated the current fluid connector landscape to produce this white paper.  This white paper presents best practices used today and outlines user considerations that are imperative for successful liquid cooling system deployment and maintenance in data centers.  It examines the wetted material compatibility, minimizing pressure drop in order to maintain design flow rates, controlling particle size for long-life reliability, understanding shipping requirements, and defining an acceptable disconnect drip level.


Topics: Fluid Connector Liquid-Cooled Liquid Cooling