White Paper From Tate(R) Identifies Server Leakage as Large Potential Source of Bypass Air in Contained Cold Aisles

JESSUP, MD--(Marketwire - Apr 5, 2012) - Tate®, a market leader in the manufacture of raised floors and airflow management solutions, has issued a white paper that identifies server leakage as a large potential source of bypass air in contained cold aisles. Tate conducted a study of 10 servers from five leading manufacturers and found the servers will leak cold air into the hot aisle at a rate of 23 to 135 percent of their designed flow rate, when a positive static pressure is experienced at the server inlet. Leakage at these rates will significantly impact annual energy costs to operate data centers.

In response to these findings, Tate is expanding its product offering for the data center market with SmartAire™ P, a pressure sensing, automatic variable-air-volume damper that minimizes bypass airflow through servers, racks and other containment structures.

Constant airflow into a contained system with a variable-load profile wastes energy during times of nonpeak load performance as airflow is forced through servers and other spaces in the containment structure. The Tate study indicates as much as 300 to 600 cfm of bypass airflow can be forced through a 42U rack of servers in idle mode. By installing SmartAire P under a portion of the airflow panels in the cold aisle, airflow can be automatically varied to maintain a desired static pressure.

When servers enter an idle state, they draw less air from the contained system, causing static pressure in the aisle to increase. As the static pressure increases, more air is forced through the servers, even when fan speeds are reduced. The SmartAire P is daisy chained to SmartAire C units for a primary/secondary configuration that automatically modulates all dampers in the aisle to control the static pressure and maintain a user defined set point. The resulting balance eliminates leakage through idle servers and other gaps in the containment structure.

To learn more about Tate's data center solutions, download the Containment Solutions brochure. The server leakage white paper is also available for download at http://tateinc.com/products/smartaire_p.aspx.

For information about other Tate products and services, please visit www.tateinc.com or call (410) 799-4200.

ABOUT TATE^®
Tate is a leading manufacturer of raised access floors and in-floor cooling systems for data centers. Tate offers innovative solutions to effectively manage the diverse, variable, and high density heat loads commonly found in data centers. In-floor cooling systems such as SmartAire™, DirectAire™ and PowerAire™ help reduce PUE and create an energy efficient data center. As the market leader, Tate supplies best-in-class raised access floors that provide flexibility to meet the any service distribution requirement.

Related Links:

Tate
http://www.tateinc.com

white paper
http://tateinc.com/pdf/ramification_leakage_aisle_containment.pdf

data center
http://tateinc.com/products/data_centers.aspx

SmartAire™ P
http://tateinc.com/products/smartaire_p.aspx

SmartAire C
http://tateinc.com/products/smartaire_c.aspx

Containment Solutions brochure
http://tateinc.com/pdf/containaire_brochure.pdf