EcoStruxure IT Advisor CFD

We just a released a new feature to assist with laying out your data center in IT Advisor CFD. You can now use an image as a template to guide the placement of equipment and defining the room shape.   After you add a template, you can precisely scale it using the 'Set Reference Dimension' tool. Position the template where you want it in relation to the IT Advisor CFD room using the mouse, and then begin laying out your data center. Once the template is scaled and positioned, lock it in place to keep it where you want it as you finish your layout.   We've added a few other touches such as template opacity and floor grid color to help view the template in relation to the IT Advisor CFD room.   Please check it out and we hope you find this useful!   Note that the Template feature will be available to paying customers but not partners with the limited, free version. Paying customers continue to get the unlimited version with all new features. ... View more

Here are some more details about one of the new features that came out in May, modeling liquid cooled IT racks.   Each IT rack now supports a "Removed by Liquid" option. First, set, the total power for the rack. 40kW? 80kW? 100kW? ITA CFD can handle high power density racks, no problem. Then, set the % of that heat that is removed by liquid.   There are additional "Heat Load" views now, too. In addition to seeing the Total Heat Load, you can view the Heat Load to Air and Heat Load to Liquid, to get a sense of where the heat load is going in your data center. These views will show up automatically in the PDF report as well.   ... View more

You saw the new look of IT Racks which replaced the previous gray-box motif! The new IT Rack model improves accuracy, is more customizable, and reveals airflows and temperatures inside the rack.       Here are some notes and tips:   Use the IT Rack Wireframe option in the View menu (or the “W” shortcut) to toggle back and forth between solid and wireframe views.     Customize the under-rack sealing by specifying which side(s) are blocked to airflow to model magnetic airflow blocking strips, blocking of gaps due to a containment system, etc. (This feature is also new for row coolers, UPSs, PDUs, and Batteries). Customize the airflow resistance through the front, rear, bottom, and top faces of the rack. Default values are consistent with SE NetShelter SX racks. See the airflow through each face after analyzing with the hover-over menu. Model any (IT or power) equipment which has, say, airflow in the front and out of the top. In that case, set the Rear Door to Sealed and increase the Top Open Area accordingly. You may also want to reduce the Front-to-Rear Leakage area to model less recirculation in equipment designed for such airflow paths. Set the IT Population to “Empty” to model an empty rack (without blanking panels) or use that as a starting place for building a custom IT population with our new IT Equipment object. To enter measured inlet temperature and humidity values, first go to [Settings/Rack Inlet Measurements] to activate the display of these values in the IT Rack properties menu.   IT Racks are perhaps the most important infrastructure in the data center. We will continue to refine the rack model and are working toward an easy way to define and manage a diverse population of IT Equipment – for those of you working with existing data centers (brownfield applications). ... View more

We have a major new release of ITA CFD that just went live!   Here are the headline changes:   Higher fidelity IT rack/UPS model Modeling inside the rack, with both full and empty IT population Options for gap-under-rack sealing, rack front/back/top/bottom sealing Heat removed by liquid cooling New equipment look - no more sea of just gray boxes! Stand alone IT equipment Active Rear Door Heat Exchangers Project View options consolidated A big thank you to the rest of the ITA CFD team that helped put this together!       ... View more

Hi everyone,   We've just released a feature that we've had in development for awhile now, support for angled walls. This allows you to model most any data center shape. In addition to the rectangle cutouts that are already present, there are now triangle cutouts you can use to model your data center room. In IT Advisor CFD, you can check out the built in Reference Project -> Complex Room Shape to see what is possible.     ... View more