Utilization Of Microencapsulated Phase Change Material For The Optimization Of Evaporative Cooling Technology

Abstract

IT equipments are the essential facet of most institutional operations of the advanced world. Modern IT equipments are far more vigorous than older equipments. With increasing density of array of servers and growth of computing power, assessing the cooling requirements has emerged as an aspect of prime importance. Evaporative cooling is a very common cooling technology used in cooling of data centers due to low installation and power costs and simple operation. Phase change materials have been investigated over the years as thermal energy storage for cooling and heating applications. These researches have also investigated encapsulated PCM in different sizes in order to maximize its thermal properties in various heat transfer applications. However little efforts have been put to the investigation of phase change materials integrated with evaporative cooling technology. Evaporative coolers have a limitation in humid climates or when the air reaches its saturation point. If coils with phase change material are introduced in the evaporative cooling chambers, it would sensibly cool the air from cooling pad without increasing its humidity any further. An investigation has been done to anticipate the cooling effect by microencapsulated phase change material with felicitous placement of coils to obtain significant cooling and least pressure drop with the help of experimentation. Second phase would determine the experimental evaluation to reduce water consumption in cooling pad and application of hybrid evaporative coolers in data center technology.