Cold Aisle Corridor

Workspace Technology’s FlexAisle® Product Family includes Cold Aisle Corridor / Cold Aisle Containment – Hot Aisle Return Plenum, APC MGE Hot Aisle Containment Systems – Passive Airflow Management Technology – Koldlok Floor Grommet Brush Seals – Plenafill Baffle Systems – Create Energy Efficient Server Room & Data Centre Environments

Cold Aisle Corridor

Many Data Centres and Server Rooms with perimeter downflow CRAC units use Hot Aisle / Cold Aisle cabinet alignment whereby the cool air is supplied via perforated floor tiles in front of the cabinet. This air is directed into the cabinets through perforated doors where server fans will force air through to the rear doors to exit to the hot aisle.

In this traditional configuration, air recirculation occurs which leads to a substantial decline in the efficiency of the system. The maximum capacity of a traditional hot aisle / cold aisle configuration is effectively limited to 3/4Kw per cabinet due to this recirculation effect.

FlexAisle® will improve the performance of the classic hot and cold aisle arrangement with the deployment of the Cold Aisle Corridor / cold aisle containment configuration.
The system is based on the principle of complete separation of hot and cold air flows which leads to significant improvements in efficiency.

This is achieved by enclosing the cold aisle with roof panels. These roof panels are transparent and will allow for natural light into the corridor. Both ends of the cold aisle are sealed off using sliding doors to create a “Cold Aisle Corridor” / cold aisle containment.

Airflow Schematic Cold Aisle Corridor / Cold Aisle Containment

The temperature between the bottom and top of the rack will become constant. This enables the deployment of servers at any position in the rack.

Cold Aisle

AC supply air temperature can be increased. Temperatures of between 22° to 24° are considered acceptable within the cold aisle corridor. With the associated increase in the return air temperatures to air handling units, the effective Net Sensible cooling capacities are increased.

Advantages of the FlexAisle® Cold Aisle Corridor / Cold Aisle Containment configuration are summarised below :-

  • Increased cooling capacity to maximise the use of existing data centre resources
  • Life extension of the conventional data centre by several years
  • Cost-effective simple to deploy solution
  • Higher Delta T and therefore more cooling power with thermal management system airflow remaining constant
  • Predictable cooling capacity for each cold aisle