Coupling of flexible phase change materials and servers for improving the security of data centers in emergency situations

Abstract

Data centers with high-power servers cause massive energy consumption. The service object of each server is different, and the server will change from low-load to high-load when an emergency occurs, which increases heat generation. If the heat cannot be removed timely, the temperature will rise rapidly, affecting the operation and safety of servers. A common method is to change the parameters of the cooling system, which will lead to an exponential increase in energy consumption. In this paper, novel flexible phase change material (FPCM) is used for temperature control of servers. Firstly, paraffin/styrene-ethylene-butene-styrene block copolymer/expanded graphite (PA/SEBS/EG) with high flexibility, high thermal conductivity (0.72 W∙m−1∙K−1) and high enthalpy (184.77 kJ·kg−1) was prepared. Then, PA/SEBS/EG was placed above the server, and the temperature was reduced by 3.29 °C compared to without FPCM at an inlet temperature of 26 °C, and the temperature rising rate can be reduced by above 60 %, indicating that FPCM has excellent thermal management effect. Finally, Flotherm software was used to optimize the sizes and parameters of FPCM, the results show 53 × 51 × 16 mm FPCM with 12 wt% EG can reduce the temperature of 13.74 %, 14.03 %, and 14.61 % compared to without FPCM at 1.25, 1.5, 1.75 times power, respectively, and extend 771 s to exceed 80 °C under 1.75 times power. The lifespan can be increased by 3.53 times, and the cooling demand can be reduced by 24.73 %. This study provides solutions for the safe operation and energy consumption reduction of data centers.