BLACK & VEATCH
“ The most significant advancement is how we use data to make good engineering decisions, versus in the past where we relied more on industry best practices”
KYLE KROPF, DATA CENTRE PORTFOLIO SOLUTIONS LEADER, BLACK & VEATCH versus in the past where we relied more on‘ industry best practices.’”
CFD modelling has become essential because traditional rules of thumb simply don’ t work at current scales and heat densities. The integration of air cooling, liquid cooling and hybrid systems creates thermal interactions that can’ t be predicted without detailed analysis.
Kyle explains:“ We build a digital twin model to analyse both the air and liquid cooling systems within and external of the data hall to identify hotspots and cold spots. We then mitigate these inefficiencies through further refinement of the mechanical cooling design.”
The complexity multiplies with directto-chip liquid cooling for AI workloads. These systems remove approximately 80 % of heat through liquid while the remaining 20 % requires air cooling, creating thermal management challenges that require both cooling methods to work together seamlessly. Changes in workload or distribution in power( aka transients) affect thermal patterns in ways that can’ t be intuitively predicted, making detailed modelling essential for reliable operation. Digital twin technology extends this analysis beyond initial design into lifecycle management. Building Information Modelling data created during design provides the foundation for construction tracking, commissioning validation and ongoing operations optimisation.
But perhaps the most critical analysis focuses on reliability. Five nines availability – 99.999 % uptime – means less than five minutes of downtime per year. At current facility scales, even brief outages can
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