What's new in IT Design CFD

  Overview of this year's new IT Design CFD feature releases and enhancements:   Performance update to CFD engine May 2026   This release includes a performance update to the underlying CFD engine that powers IT Design CFD. On average, all cooling analyses are now 10% faster than the previous version, with even bigger increases in some cases.   We've moved from using OpenCL to CUDA to better take advantage of the Nvidia GPUs that run the ITD CFD calculations. Along with the speed increase, this sets the foundation for future improvements and optimizations.     Schneider Electric chilled-water cooler libraries now available May 2025   We are excited to announce the first release of high-fidelity digital-twin cooler libraries in EcoStruxure IT Design CFD.   This first release includes all ten Schneider Electric chilled-water row coolers by product SKU. Place them in your ITD CFD project, set cooler airflow rate and supply temperature, and let ITD CFD determine the correct cooling capacity based on operating conditions automatically.   Libraries of all Schneider Electric chilled-water coolers will be released over the coming months along with improvements in the underlying physics models and user experience.   Please let us know what you think!    

Modeling liquid cooled IT racks details May 2024   Here are more details about 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 are automatically included in the PDF report.         New IT Rack model details May 2024   The new IT Rack model improves accuracy, is more customizable, and reveals airflows and temperatures inside the rack.       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 customers working with existing data centers (brownfield applications).   Major new release of ITA CFD May 2024   We have a major new release of ITA CFD that just went live!   Here are the headliner 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!

Angled walls December 2023   We've just released a feature that we've had in development for a while, support for angled walls.   This allows you to model almost 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.   Check out the built-in Reference Project > Complex Room Shape to see what is possible.     Raised Floor and Dropped Ceiling Leakage details   May 2023   The Room menu now shows airflow leakage details for the raised floor and dropped ceiling.     We haven’t changed any calculations, but here is some additional background information. The airflow leakage velocity 𝑉 at any location is related to the pressure drop Δ𝑃 across the raised floor or dropped ceiling by: Δ𝑃=𝑓(1/2)𝜌𝑉 2   where 𝜌 is the density of air (we assume 1.2 kg/m3 at seal level) and 𝑓 is the dimensionless loss coefficient. We compute 𝑓 as a function of open area 𝛽 for all resistances in EcoStruxure IT Advisor CFD from [1]: 𝑓=(1/𝛽 2.3 )(1−𝛽) Note that 𝛽 in the above equation is a decimal value, not a percentage. For example, 0.01 instead of 1%. Finally, % open area values selected for the various raised floor and dropped ceiling leakage options are based on [2] and [3]. 1. VanGilder, J., Seymour, M., Hu, B., Tian, W., Pang, M., and Lin, C., 2022 “Flow Resistance Characteristics for Data Center CFD”, ASHRAE Transactions 2022, Volume 128, Part 2. 2. VanGilder, J., and Zhang, X., 2015, “Development of a Raised-Floor Plenum Design Tool”, Proceedings of InterPACK, July 6-9, San Francisco, California. 3. VanGilder, J. And Zhang, X. 2014, “Cooling Performance of Ceiling-Plenum-Ducted Containment Systems in Data Centers”, Proceedings of the Intersociety Conference on Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems (ITHERM 2014), May 27–30, Orlando, Florida.   Default IT Equipment Airflow/Power February 2023   We changed the default IT Equipment airflow assumption from 125 cfm/kW (212 m^3/hr/kW) to 100 cfm/kW (170 m^3/hr/kW).   Though seemingly a minor tweak, this can have a large impact on your designs. With 20% less IT airflow, fewer coolers may be required and those remaining coolers may be operated at lower airflow rates - while still ensuring good cooling performance.   It is important to keep in mind that we are simply estimating airflow as a function of power; good airflow data is hard to find while power is typically known. Actual server airflow varies from model to model and even between different configurations of the same model. Servers may also automatically increase their airflow above an inlet-temperature threshold, e.g., 27 C (80.6 F).   Over the years, IT airflow has trended downward as data-center best practices have improved (e.g., hot/cold aisle, containment) and IT vendors reduce IT fan power. As the IT airflow goes down, the temperature rise across the IT equipment goes up. However, maximum exhaust temperatures are limited by inlet temperature thresholds and maximum safe "touch" temperatures.   As a result of these constraints, IT airflow per power has become more consistent in recent years. The best overall source of IT airflow data that we have found is IT Equipment Design Impact on Data Center Solutions by ASHRAE.   Below is a plot from that reference. Looking at the plot, we see that the average airflow per power is actually closer to 75 cfm/kW (125 m^3/hr). The default value in EcoStruxure IT Advisor CFD is a bit larger to give us some conservative margin and account for non-server IT equipment like storage products and networking gear which typically has more airflow on a per-power basis.   Cloud GPU upgrade February 2023   We've just upgraded the cloud GPU hardware to give you an even faster, better experience.   Thank you for your continued use of EcoStruxure IT Design CFD and designing data centers grounded in good science!

Shortcut key for Top View and Rack Power on hover December 2022   We have some small quality-of-life improvements to EcoStruxure IT Advisor CFD based on user feedback.   You can now use the shortcut key 't' to instantly jump back to the default, top down view. Also, while hovering over racks (when an analysis is present) you can see the power for each rack.   To take this idea even further, at the beginning of 2023, we will be adding a Rack Power view so you can see the power of all of your racks, similar to how perforated floor tiles are colored for airflow.   Please keep the feedback and suggestions coming. It helps us, and helps make EcoStruxure IT Design CFD better for everyone!   Undo! Finally! November 2022   Thank you everyone for your patience and many (many) requests for undo/redo.   It's a clearly a core piece of functionality that was missing. Now if you make a change you don't want when modeling a data center, you can either use the buttons on the top tool bar or use the keyboard shortcuts. Thanks again for your patience!    New Containment and Pressure-Scaling features October 2022   Containment   (Unlimited-version users only). You can now specify leakage in terms of a "% open area". Previously, ITA CFD idealized all leakage as taking place "through the IT Racks" as they typically represent the primary leakage paths. Now you can add additional leakage uniformly distributed over the surfaces of the Containment. Of course, you can (still) also use Porous Plates (coincident with faces of the Containment) to explicitly model specific areas of leakage, e.g., where the containment meets the tops of the racks.   After "Analyzing" the Containment hover-over menu now provides lots of great information which helps you understand precisely where all of the airflow is going as well as providing a summary of pressure inside the containment.     Pressure Scaling   ITA CFD now automatically scales the pressure in all parts of the whitespace so that the pressure in the main room area is zero on average. This convention is consistent with how we normally make pressure measurements in actual data centers for testing, cooler-control, etc. We also retained the manual "Pressure Offset" if you wish to further scale pressures up or down by any amount.   While this feature seems modest or even obvious, we're not aware of it in any other CFD tool and it is one of those things that just "feels right".   New PDF report with screenshots October 2022   For our paying customers, there is a new PDF report that includes room summary information and reference images of the cooling check view and field values (temperature, pressure, speed, velocity vectors).   This compliments the available spreadsheet which contains all of the project and the analysis data.   50mm resolution support September 2022   For our paying customers, equipment and room resolution in 50mm (2 inch) increments is now supported. This allows, for instance, an often requested ability to model 800mm racks.   Placing and moving equipment in a data center continues to be a smooth and easy process. Equipment will continue to snap to the preferred placement grid (150mm intervals), but also will snap to other equipment edges.   When you don't want to use the mouse to drag equipment around, there is a Move menu. Use the menu or keyboard shortcuts to move equipment in either 50mm or 150mm amounts.   If you want to dig in deeper, you can use the new CFD Grid button to see the underlying grid that will be used when doing the CFD calculations.   Modeling your data center in 150mm (6 inches) continues to be the recommended 'sweet spot' for data center CFD. However, for the times that you need just a bit more, 50mm resolution is supported.     Progress towards 50mm resolution and 800mm racks August 2022   For our paying customers, we've added the ability to see the underlying grid that is used during a CFD analysis.   You enable it first in Settings > CFD and then choose Display CFD Grid Setting in Toolbar. An additional icon will appear to the left of the Cooling Check icon. You can then toggle the visibility of the CFD Grid on and off.   We consider this a real CFD-geek power user feature - feel free to let us know if we are wrong! - but it is part of an important step in getting to 50mm resolution and support for things like 800mm racks.    Legend Settings and Plane Max/Min June 2022   In a recent update, we added Global Max and Min values reported right above the legend. We received some feedback that this could create more questions than answers when sharing the IT CFD analysis results with customers.   Legend settings are now available in the Settings menu. You can switch the max and min values displayed in the legend to:   Global: The values that were displayed from the previous update. Plane: This new setting displays the max and min values of the visible field values plane. None: None is now the default.   Pressure offset control and velocity vector components are also in the legend settings.   Note: The legend settings are available only in the unlimited version.   Cooling Check Thresholds and more! June 2022   Cooling Check Thresholds   The headliner of this update is the Cooling Check thresholds. You can now change the temperature thresholds for IT inlet temperatures as well as thresholds for recirculation. If you only want to focus on IT inlet temperature, you can disable the recirculation thresholds.   Go to Settings > Cooling Check.         Note that the Cooling Check Thresholds are only available for those with access to the unlimited version of EcoStruxure IT Advisor CFD. Upgrade to unlimited access here.   Improved Field Value Probing   Highlight Velocity Vector when probing Probe for values inside Containment       No Leakage construction option for Raised Floor and Dropped Ceiling   An issue with reporting Raised Floor and Dropped Ceiling leakages in the report as addressed.   Custom Coolers (Unlimited Version Only) April 2022   IT CFD now supports custom coolers with angled supplies. Previously, you only had the standard cooler objects like Row Coolers, Downflow Coolers, etc. Now you can group together any number of supply and return terminals to make your own cooler.    You can also now specify the airflow supply angle in any desired direction - to model things like louvered supply grilles.    Best of all, this all works elegantly using the Group feature already present in IT CFD. Just "Group" any combination of cooler supply and return terminals (and other objects too if desired) and IT CFD will automatically recognize the group as a Custom Cooler.    How cool is that (pun intended)?             Interpolated Temperatures, Pressures, and Speed (Unlimited Version Only) April 2022   The scalar field values (temperature, pressure, and speed) are all now interpolated. This gives a smooth, high-quality, and accurate display of all the values. Not only does this look good, but, IT CFD also allows you to see "smooth" numerical values as you move the mouse cursor!     Miscellaneous improvements April 2022   A Help Menu has been added which currently includes a Quick-Start Guide. In the future, we'll be adding more reference material.  All supply and return terminals (e.g., on Row Coolers, Downflow Coolers Front Discharge, etc.) include blue supply and red return arrows upon object selection.   Merge (Unlimited Version Only) April 2022   Use the new File > Merge option to merge the entire equipment population from a saved project into the currently open project. All equipment enters the current project in the same orientation and position (relative to the coordinate origin) in which it existed in the saved project.   This means you can now create custom libraries of objects (e.g., groups, custom coolers, etc.) to share among your other projects and even with other IT CFD users!   Monitor Regions February 2022   IT CFD now supports monitor regions.   Monitor regions are user-defined volumes that report the Min/Max/Avg of Temperature, Pressure, and Speed for the volume. The data is available on the tooltip once an analysis has been run.   A monitor region can be placed just like any other piece of equipment and can be adjusted down to the size of a single cell or increased to the size of the entire room.   Containment now reports the same information as the monitor regions in the tooltip.   In the screenshot below, the monitor region is used to examine the airflow coming out of the four perforated floor tiles closest to the cooler.   If you have questions, send us an email or ask in the EcoStruxure IT forum.     Report Export February 2022   IT CFD now has the long awaited Report Export feature. Go to File > Export Report to download a report in Excel xlsx format. The report contains all relevant project information.     Multi-select: Selection Window January 2022   IT CFD now supports selection windows. Use your mouse to create a selection window to select multiple items and groups at once.