Iceotope Liquid Cooling System
Warley Design Solutions has played a leading role in the design and development of Iceotope’s award-winning liquid cooling system for datacentres. This innovative new solution has been named ‘Startup Product of the Year’ at the 2012 Techworld Awards and enables datacentres to minimise their energy requirements through the delivery of 24/7 free cooling for ICT in any climate around the world. It will reduce datacentre cooling costs by up to 97% and deliver further savings by harnessing the heat output for heating, hot water and other applications. The system also provides a massive increase in cooling capacity allowing hardware designers to drive thermal densities to previously unprecedented levels.
According to Peter Hopton, CTO at Iceotope: “Warley Design Solutions has played a key role in helping us deliver an elegant engineering solution that will reduce the costs associated with power and air cooling in datacentres and HPC environments. The company is a valuable development partner and provided expert technical support throughout the project from concept design, structural analysis and CFD to sourcing, assembling and delivering components that worked perfectly the first time.”
The Iceotope cooling solution is a revolutionary system that encapsulates all server electronics in a sealed unit containing Novec, 3M’s dielectric coolant which convects heat 20 times faster than conventional water cooled systems. Heat is extracted via integral water channels and can be harvested to provide central heating or hot water in other buildings or facilities. The system works with water supplies up to 45°C enabling datacentres to operate efficiently in any climate.
The system is fully compliant with the ASHRAE water cooling standard and can be used in fully redundant datacentres. It is also virtually silent as cooling fans and air flow management are not required, meaning that there is no need to consider fan fail scenarios, filtration and inlet/outlet placement constraints such as hot/cold aisle containment.
“We are pleased to have played such an important role in the development of this award-winning solution,” added John Durban, Director of Warley Design Solutions. “With an engineering design focus on function and compliance, we have the technical strength, methodologies and mix of tools to ensure that all engineering aspects necessary to ensure success are undertaken. Our proven track record in product development and flexible approach are key factors that enable us to meet even the tightest project deadlines.”
Key elements of the development programme undertaken by Warley Design Solutions included:
• Design and optimisation of coolant delivery system to balance pressure drops and minimise energy consumption.
• Design of a blind-mate “floating” water connector system to ensure engagement.
• Tolerance management to ensure that the tolerance stack-up through the system is accommodated within the float of the connectors.
• Design and optimisation of structural members to keep shelf deflections to within budget using structural simulation techniques.
• Selection of manufacturing processes and design of all mechanical parts and sub-assemblies to meet cost, tolerance and manufacturing constraints.
• Materials selection
• Prototype manufacture and assembly services utilising WDS’ established supply chain
• Test services to validate design.
The Iceotope cooling system has also been nominated as a finalist for an Elektra Award in the category of “New Company of the Year” as part of the European Electronics Industry Awards.
About Warley Design Solutions Ltd
Warley Design Solutions Ltd is a leading independent provider of specialist mechanical design and engineering services to support the development of electronic products. The company has considerable experience of product development and product manufacturing and is uniquely placed to develop high-performing, reliable equipment that is optimised for any given manufacturing volume and cost. With customers in the telecoms, computing, defence and information security sectors, Warley Design Solutions provides customers with the support they need to successfully bring products to market in short timescales. For further information, please visit www.warleydesign.co.uk or contact:
John Durban, Warley Design Solutions, Tel: +44 (0)1277 261066, Email: jdurban@warleydesign.co.uk
Richard Barrington, Tel: 07590034674, Email: richard.barrington@iceotope.com
Paul Jennings, PJMC Limited, Tel: +44 (0) 1926 312886, Email: info@pjmc.com