What is Adiabatic Cooling?
In nature, adiabatic cooling is often associated with elevation. As seen with cloud formations, an air mass that is heated expands and becomes less dense. Being less dense, it is lighter and rises above a higher-pressure air mass. Having reached areas with less dense air, it further expands, losing energy that was gained and cooling as it does so. When the cooling air crosses the dew point, moisture in the air accumulates as clouds. With enough moisture and cooling comes precipitation. The principles of adiabatic cooling are also applied to increase humidity in facilities.
What are Adiabatic Cooling Towers and Why are They Used in Datacenters?
An adiabatic evaporative cooler is basically a large fan that draws air through water-moistened pads. As the air runs through the pads it cools down the water. The cooled water is then sent back where required (in our case to the SmartPods heat exchanging system).
The temperature can be controlled by adjusting the air and water flow of the cooling tower. During the cooler months, the adiabatic system doesn’t need water to lower the temperature, so it’s actually switched off and works without even having to wet the pads. For the hottest summer days, the wettening of the pads allows to reduce the temperature below the ambient one. All this is managed automatically by the tower depending on the outdoor temperature and humidity.
This is possible thanks to the dry bulb and wet bulb difference.
Adiabatic cooling towers offer several advantages over traditional cooling systems with cooling towers or dry-coolers, for example:
- No consumption of process water (closed circuit)
- No use of refrigerant gas
- No health or environmental contamination (no legionella)
- No formation of limestone/scale
- No chemical treatment of water
- Top performance even with air temperatures over 40°C
- Best heat exchange at dry bulb conditions (air-water exchange ∆T 5°C)
- Low noise levels
- Low power consumption
Why Does Submer Use Adiabatic Cooling Towers for its Liquid Immersion Cooling Solution?
Our liquid immersion coolant operates at much higher temperatures than air-cooled server rooms as it can collect and transport heat much more efficiently. This allows us to use ambient temperatures all year round to cool the SmartCoolant. The main reasons why our recommended setup includes adiabatic cooling towers are:
- Close to zero water evaporation in comparison to standard water cooling towers that consume hundreds of thousands of litres of fresh water per year.
- Highly efficient power consumption thanks to auto-regulating pumps and fans. The cooling tower only consumes the bare minimum it needs to achieve its purpose.
Adiabatic cooling towers are the greenest option available on the market to cool our SmartPods, at the same time allowing the Submer Immersion Cooling solution to achieve one of the best PUE’s on the market.
Can I use Other Cooling Systems if I already have them in Place?
The Submer Immersion Cooling solution can be retrofitted into practically any datacenter cooling solution available. Our engineers will be glad to evaluate using current infrastructure to optimise your investment when installing our SmartPods so contact us.
