Data centers need clean environment ventilation solutions to operate effectively. Therefore, it’s crucial to ensure ventilation systems meet your needs and follow designated parameters for data centers and equipment. In this article, we’ll discuss ventilation for data centers and things you need to know.
If you need ventilation system solutions, get in touch with our team today for a quote.
What is Clean Environment Ventilation?
Before we discuss specific data center ventilation challenges, first it’s important to understand what clean environment ventilation is. This is a type of ventilation that is needed in specific areas. They tightly control indoor environments for areas with high sensitivity to things like temperature, humidity, contaminants, and air flow. Often, this means they need advanced filtration and ultra-reliable components for ventilation. Otherwise, the air inside the building could actually harm the process, product, or equipment. Some examples of applications that need clean environments include pharmaceutical production, food processing, electronics manufacturing, laboratories, and data centers.
Why Data Centers Need Clean Environment Ventilation
Data centers house important and sensitive equipment which is easily damaged. This means that data centers require clean environment ventilation. The electronics in data center equipment are susceptible to damage from things like extreme temperatures and humidity as well as contaminants in the air. As such, it’s essential to ensure industrial ventilation systems for these centers control these different elements of the environment.
Temperatures Can Affect Data Center Equipment
Data centers need to be kept very cool for the equipment to run optimally. Cooling is often a huge challenge for data centers, as the equipment often generates a significant amount of heat. However, hot temperatures can lead to overheating, eventually causing equipment wear and breakdowns.
However, temperatures that are too cold can also affect data center equipment. Cold temperatures outside of the recommended operating temperatures can also negatively impact data center equipment. Cold temperatures can put extra stress on the system and may even cause sudden failure of some components. Therefore, temperature is a serious concern for data center ventilation systems.
Humidity May Impact Electronics
Another environmental concern for data centers is humidity. The clean environment ventilation systems must also keep humidity within required ranges per the equipment manufacturer. Humidity is the amount of moisture in the air and is usually measured by relative humidity.
If the relative humidity is too high, this creates humid conditions. High humidity can expose data center equipment to too much moisture, which can degrade or damage electronics. Just like you wouldn’t throw your cell phone in the sink to wash it because of the water, you don’t want data centers to have high humidity levels. Extra humidity can also hold onto more contaminants, which is another major concern.
Too little humidity can also be a problem for data centers as well. Dry air often creates more static electricity. Static electricity can also interfere with data center equipment. Sometimes, static shocks can even cause serious damage to sensitive data center components.
Dust and Other Contaminants can Harm Data Center Equipment
Another issue with data centers is controlling contaminants. There are many types of airborne contaminants that may interfere with data center equipment. One of the biggest culprits is dust. Dust can act as an insulator and lead to overheating on electronic equipment. Additionally, dust often also holds moisture that can also damage data center components. Dust can also be a fire hazard, as it can ignite when exposed to hot temperatures or sparks from electronics. Therefore, it’s essential to control contaminants in the air of the data center. Clean environment ventilation systems can help prevent contaminants from harming data center equipment and increasing risks for outages and fires due to dust.
The Need for Reliable Clean Environment Ventilation Systems for Data Centers
Why is maintaining successful environments for data centers so important? Data centers control many processes that we depend on every day. They are essential for things we even take for granted, like a lot of communication systems. It’s not just social media sites that would go down, data center failure can also cause issues for critical services like banks, credit card processing, and even hospital medical records. Therefore, it’s necessary to ensure that data centers operate reliably. Part of this is ensuring that the ventilation systems provide the right conditions for equipment to operate effectively to prevent unplanned outages.
Clean Environment Ventilation Challenges for Data Centers
There are several standards for data center environments. Clean environment ventilation systems are responsible for maintaining these conditions. Here are some of the standards and challenges that data center ventilation systems face:
Keeping Environments Cool
As we mentioned, data center equipment is incredibly sensitive to extreme temperatures. Generally speaking, the biggest challenge is keeping data centers cool enough for the equipment. After all, many data centers are located in areas with warm temperatures. Additionally, the equipment typically generates heat that needs to be removed from the environment as well. Current recommendations are to keep temperatures between 18°C and 27°C (64.4°F and 80.6°F). Cooling usually requires equipment like fans and evaporative cooling units.
Preventing High and Low Humidity Levels
Humidity is also a concern for most data centers. Clean environment ventilation systems also control humidity levels in the air of the data center. Standards vary for data center humidity levels. However, it is usually best to keep data center dew point temperatures between 41.9°F to 59°F. This usually converts to a relative humidity of between 43% and 47% relative humidity based on the recommended temperatures we listed in the section above. Often, controlling humidity in data centers requires dehumidifiers to reduce humidity or, in rarer cases, humidifiers to increase humidity.
Controlling Contaminants with Industrial Ventilation Systems
As we mentioned, dust and other contaminants are also potentially damaging to data centers. Industrial ventilation systems can reduce the number of contaminants in data center environments in a few ways. For one, they exhaust contaminated air that might contain excessive dust or other particulates. Additionally, ventilation systems may feature advanced filtration systems to cleanse the air of dust and contaminants before it enters the building.
Preventing contaminants also relies on creating positive pressures in the building, which usually means having make up air units with good filtration. Positive pressure helps prevent untreated air from getting into the building when doors open or through normal cracks in the building envelope.
Best Types of Industrial Ventilation Control for Data Centers
When it comes to industrial ventilation control for data centers, there are several options. Control methods include natural, mechanical, and hybrid. Each has its pros and cons, particularly when it comes to the exact application. For data center ventilation, mechanical systems are usually best, as they offer the most control over environmental conditions like temperature and humidity. While they use more energy than natural or hybrid options, they’re often necessary for ensuring reliable operations for data centers.
Clean Environment Ventilation Solutions from Eldridge
If you need ventilation systems for your data center, contact our experts at Eldridge. We’ve been providing superior ventilation solutions since 1946 and are proud to offer some of the most advanced solutions available. Our team uses sophisticated design tools to ensure systems are fully tailored to your needs. We also utilize equipment from trusted manufacturers to ensure performance, longevity, and reliability. Contact us today to get a free quote for your ventilation needs.