Air distribution improvement of closed type server cabinets using flow baffles.

This paper addresses the problems of airflow in the narrow cold and hot passages of a close type server cabinet. The problems of flow distribution and recirculation could lead to hotter air mixed into the cool air supplied to the servers. Flow baffles are evaluated for isolation of cold and hot passages, and minimize the air flowing between the servers. Computer models were set up to study the flow and temperature fields. Supply heat index (SHI) that indicates the enthalpy rise due to warm air infiltration into the cool air was used in the performance evaluation. The simulation results show flow baffles could improve on the flow distribution. Compared with the base case with SHI 0.29, the flow baffles can reduce SHI to 0.03. It was concluded that flow baffles are viable solution to the problems of hot air mixing into cold air in close server cabinets.