Experimental Study On The Effects Of Gaseous Contamination On IT Equipment

Abstract

Every company is trying to reduce their carbon footprint in today's world. The data center industry is no different. To reduce the cooling costs and increase the efficiency, air -side economizers are used. Air-side economizers bring in outside ambient cold air to cool the data center equipment. Through this, we can save on cooling costs. The problem relating to air-side economization is that we have no control over the humidity and contamination. Humidity and contamination go hand in hand, as one influence the other. In the past filters have been used to combat contamination but it has proved to be a costly affair as they have to be replaced periodically. According to ASHRAE standards, the filters inside the data center must be MERV 8 filters. The air filters at the inlet for outside air must be MERV 13 [6]. Sulfur bearing gases are one of the main causes of corrosion of IT equipment in data centers. They react with silver and copper in the presence of humidity to cause corrosion. Most of the electronic equipment is built of metals like copper and silver. Due to the corrosion of these metals, the reliability of the equipment reduces drastically. This thesis focusses on experimentally determining the amount of corrosion that occurs when these metals are exposed to a concentrated amount of sulfur dioxide in a controlled atmosphere.