JPS6218043B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (a) Technical Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for installing and cooling electronic equipment such as a computer on a raised floor.

(b) Prior art and its problems In computer rooms, double floors with raised floors are used to connect electronic devices such as computer bodies and input/output devices that make up the computer system with cables. It is common practice to install cables under the floor. In addition, cooling air conditioning using a package type air conditioner is used to cool the heat generating parts such as semiconductor devices of each device constituting a computer and to air condition the computer room. Air conditioning systems using package-type air conditioners include:
Direct-blow air conditioning blows out cooling air directly from a packaged air conditioner, and the area under the raised floor is used as a cooling air duct. An opening is opened in the raised floor directly below the electronic equipment, and the electronic equipment is connected through this opening. Underfloor air conditioning that supplies cooled air inside the building is known.

With direct-blow air conditioning, there are limits to the air volume and speed of the air conditioner, so the distance the cooling air can reach is insufficient, resulting in uneven temperature distribution depending on location and height. Become. In addition, with underfloor air conditioning, if there are many devices to be cooled or the computer room is large and the amount of cooling air consumed is large, the height of the raised floor may be raised to reduce the underfloor ventilation resistance, or the static pressure may be increased. A blower with large airflow characteristics must be installed.
Therefore, it is necessary to increase the size of the package-type air conditioner or install multiple cage-type air conditioners. Moreover, a packaged air conditioner is made up of a refrigerant compressor, a condenser, an expansion cooling coil, a blower, etc. Because the computer room is large, if multiple packaged air conditioners are installed, it is necessary to The area will also increase.

(c) Purpose of the Invention The present invention solves these problems in the conventional method of cooling electronic equipment using a packaged air conditioner, and lowers the height of the raised floor for underfloor air conditioning. To make it possible to raise the ceiling of a computer room, lower the capacity of an air conditioner, and simplify the configuration.

(d) Structure of the Invention In order to achieve this object, the present invention provides a system in which electronic equipment is arranged on a raised floor and the heat generating part of the electronic equipment is forcibly cooled. The floor has a cooling coil through which the refrigerant supplied and circulated to the heat exchanger passes, and has a ventilation hole, and such a raised floor is arranged at least below the electronic equipment and above the electronic equipment. Cooling air is arranged in a peripheral area, and the cooling air is guided from the ventilation holes of the raised floor in the peripheral area to the underfloor of the raised floor from the ventilation holes of the raised floor below the electronic equipment. A method is adopted in which the heat is sucked into the interior and cools the heat-generating parts.

(e) Embodiments of the Invention Next, embodiments of the method for cooling electronic equipment according to the present invention will be described. FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a computer room showing a state where each electronic device constituting a computer system is being cooled by the method of the present invention.
Reference numerals 11, 12, and 13 designate electronic devices to be cooled; for example, 11 is a computer main body, 12 is a magnetic tape device, and 13 is a magnetic disk device. 2
is a chilling unit, and 3 is a cooling tower that cools the refrigerant. Each electronic device 11, 12,
13 and the chilling unit 2 are installed on the raised floor 4. The free access floor 4 is raised above a base floor 71 using pillars 72, and has a double structure.

In the chilling unit 2, the refrigerant 22 is compressed by the refrigerant compressor 21, and then cooled and condensed in the condenser 23 through heat exchange with cold water supplied from the cooling tower 3. The cooling water heated by the heat exchange at this time is sent to the cooling tower 3 via the ring water pipe 31.
After being cooled, the water is discharged from the water pump 32, passes through the water pipe 33, and is supplied to the condenser 23 of the chilling unit 2.

The condensed refrigerant is adiabatically expanded in the expander 24 and cools the secondary refrigerant or cold water 25 . Expander 24
The expanded refrigerant is returned to the refrigerant compressor 21 and compressed, and then supplied to the condenser 23 again where it is cooled and condensed. The secondary refrigerant or cold water 25 cooled by the expander 24 is discharged to the underfloor piping 27 by the water pump 26, and is returned to the underfloor piping 28 via the raised floors 4a and 4b with built-in cooling coils.

2 and 3 are enlarged perspective views of the raised floor 4a with a built-in cooling coil, in which the secondary refrigerant or chilled water 25 cooled by the expander 24 passes through a flexible tube 41, and the cooling coil 42 is built in. Built-in coil raised floor 4
a, 4b. The refrigerant heated by exchanging heat with the air surrounding the raised access floors 4a and 4b with built-in cooling coils returns to the expander 24 through the pipe 28, where it is cooled again and the raised access floors 4a and 4b with built-in cooling coils are heated. 4b.

An opening is provided directly below the electronic device 11 by removing the free access panel 4, and replacing it with the opening shown in FIGS. 2 and 3.
A raised access floor 4a with a built-in cooling coil as shown in the figure is fitted therein.
Further, around the electronic device 11, the free access panel 4 is removed, and a free access floor 4b having a built-in cooling coil 42 is provided. Raised floor with built-in cooling coil 4
Both a and 4b have a large number of ventilation holes 43... in order to increase the contact area with air.
Air passing through the ventilation holes 43 and the cooling coil 4
2, and the passing air is cooled. Note that the raised floor 4b with a built-in cooling coil shown in FIG.

A fan 61 is provided at the bottom of the electronic device 11, and cooling air is sucked into the electronic device 11 by the fan 61. In the illustrated example, the fan 61 causes air in the computer room 5 to pass through the raised floor 4b with a built-in cooling coil outside the electronic equipment 11, as shown by the arrow _a1 , and pass through the raised floor 4b. Then, as shown by arrow _a2 , it passes through the ventilation holes 43 of the raised floor 4a with a built-in cooling coil and the cable passage openings 44, rises, and is sucked into the electronic equipment 11. be done. In the end, the heat generating portion inside the electronic device 11 is cooled by the cool air that has passed twice through the raised floor with a built-in cooling coil and has been sufficiently cooled. The air whose temperature has increased by exchanging heat with the heat generating part inside the electronic device 11 is discharged into the computer room 5 by a fan 62 on the ceiling of the electronic device 11 .

The refrigerant in the cooling coil 42, whose temperature has increased by cooling the passing air, returns to the expander 24 of the chilling unit 2 through the return flexible tube 45 and the underfloor pipe 28. 46... is a pipe connector. Also, each other electronic device 12,1
3... are similarly cooled by the cold air that has passed through the raised floor with built-in cooling coils 4a, 4b.

In addition, since the refrigerant is supplied in liquid form to or near the cold air inlet of each electronic device, it is easy to adjust the flow rate, eliminating uneven cooling when blowing cold air such as direct blow air conditioning or underfloor air conditioning. be done. In addition, by creating a free access panel with a built-in cooling coil that is externally compatible with conventional free access panels, no special cooling coil space is required.
Moreover, since the computer fan can also be used as a cooling fan, a cooling fan is also unnecessary.

As an application example of the illustrated embodiment, a bypass flow rate control valve 34 is provided in the middle of the circulating water pipe 31 flowing to the cooling tower 3, and the water supply pipe 3
3 and the 3-way switching valve 2 in the middle of the ring water pipe 31
9 so that the chilled water from the cooling tower 3 can be circulated to the expander 24, when the temperature is low in winter, the chilled water from the cooling tower can be directly used as a secondary refrigerant or chilled water instead of the expander's refrigerant expansion cooling. , and the operation of the refrigerant compressor 21 can be stopped, resulting in a reduction in operating costs.

(f) Effect of the invention As described above, according to the present invention, in a system in which electronic equipment is arranged on a raised floor and the heat generating part of the electronic equipment is forcibly cooled, the raised floor also serves as a heat exchanger. has a cooling coil through which the refrigerant supplied and circulated to the heat exchanger passes, and is provided with a ventilation hole, and such a raised floor is provided at least below the electronic equipment and around the electronic equipment. The cooling air guided from the ventilation holes of the raised floor in the peripheral area to the underfloor of the raised floor is routed from the ventilation holes of the raised floor below the electronic equipment to the inside of the electronic equipment. This method is used to cool the heat-generating parts.
Therefore, heat exchangers such as raised floors with built-in cooling coils are placed only in areas that require the most cooling, and refrigerant only needs to be supplied to the heat exchangers with built-in cooling coils, so the capacity of the chilling unit is also small. It's done. As a result, unlike conventional package-type air conditioners, the expander coil,
This eliminates the need for blowers, air ducts, etc., and allows each computer device to be cooled with a much more compact chilling unit. In addition, unlike underfloor air conditioning, there is no need to raise the floor height for underfloor ventilation, and the effective ceiling height of the computer room can be increased. Furthermore, because the raised floor doubles as a heat exchanger, there is no need to modify the electronic equipment itself, and it can be applied directly to electronic equipment that is cooled by conventional underfloor air conditioning or direct air conditioning. Therefore, it is highly versatile, does not increase costs, and does not cause electronic equipment to become larger.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a computer room showing an embodiment of the method for cooling electronic equipment according to the present invention, FIG.
The figure is a perspective view of a raised floor with built-in cooling coils. In the figure, 11, 12, 13 are electronic devices, 2
is the chilling unit, 3 is the cooling tower, 2
1 is a refrigerant compressor, 23 is a condenser, 24 is an expander,
4 is a free access panel, 4a, 4b is a raised floor with built-in cooling coils, 42 is a cooling coil, and 43... are ventilation holes.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. In a system in which electronic equipment is placed on a raised floor and the heat generating part of the electronic equipment is forcibly cooled, the raised floor that also serves as a heat exchanger is provided with a supply circulation system to the heat exchanger. The invention has a configuration including a cooling coil through which a refrigerant is passed, and is provided with a ventilation hole, and such a raised floor is provided at least below the electronic device and in the periphery of the electronic device, and the raised floor Cooling air guided from the ventilation holes of the raised floor to the underfloor of the raised floor is drawn into the electronic equipment from the ventilation holes of the raised floor below the electronic equipment to cool the heat generating part. A method for cooling electronic equipment characterized by the following.