Visual Factory Chillers

A visual factory is a factory that uses visual methods to convey information in a lean manufacturing environment. Lytron operates a visual factory that is continuously striving to improve quality and on-time delivery for its customers. The current status of jobs is clear to everyone involved and everyone is, quite literally, on the same page. For example, the chiller team works off of flat screen monitors at each work station that show them all of the build documentation electronically, and the current week’s production goals and customer commitment dates are posted in the factory for everyone to see and reference as needed. Lytron also uses color coding in numerous areas to help employees quickly and easily identify prototypes that have special handling requirements.  

Stockholm, Sweden

An article written by Yevgeniy Sverdlik in the January issue of Data Center Dynamics FOCUS magazine, titled “Sweden pitches for data centers,” reviews the attractive pitch the Invest in Sweden Agency (ISA) has for data centers. The country boasts district heating and cooling systems that allow customers to feed their waste heat energy into the system and trade it for cooling energy. IBM is one of the companies taking advantage of this, using its waste heat to warm its own building as well as selling its excess heat back to the energy company in the form of hot water. Fortum, the energy company, uses seawater for cooling from about January through August. The company provides the cold water at a temperature of 6°C (43°F). Fortum recently built a thermal storage facility in a mountain, capable of storing 40MW worth of cooling. By taking advantage of its cold climate, Fortum is able to provide some of its Swedish customers with a heating and cooling value proposition that is better than in other areas of Europe.

Tieto, one of the leading data center owners and operators in the Nordics, is also taking advantage of Sweden’s environment for energy efficiency and cost savings. Tieto is currently building a data center in a cave. The data center, which is scheduled for opening in April 2010, will use outside air and the cave’s long tunnels for cooling the data center most of the year. In the summer, the company will use chillers to supplement the cooling. Like IBM’s facility, Tieto’s cave facility also plans to use excess heat to warm its facility and sell its excess heat to the utility.

 One other way of taking advantage of a cool climate is to use a liquid-to-liquid cooling system for data center cooling. A liquid-to-liquid cooling system supplies temperature controlled coolant to liquid cooled cabinets. The cooling is provided by a separate facility water loop, which could be cooled by the environment.  

Although we can’t all take advantage of caves for cooling or district heating systems, we can look for innovative ways to cool data centers more efficiently. With the large expense of cooling a data center, it pays to take the time to be sure that the data center cooling solution selected will be the most economical and easy-to-manage over the long term.

Recirculating Chiller

Lytron frequently receives questions through its “Ask an Engineer” website form. A customer recently asked the following question: “Does the RC022J03BF2C031 include the optional heater?”

The RC022, one of Lytron’s standard recirculating chillers, does have an optional 2,000 Watt electric resistance heater. This heater option allows the chiller to more quickly reach a set point temperature above the ambient temperature. This is useful for applications where a cold start is necessary or where the coolant set point is frequently cycled. The heater option is available on the RC011, RC022, RC030, and RC045 recirculating chillers. Options available on standard chillers can be reviewed under the chiller specifications page. Additional options are available for custom chillers.

EGW Wordle

Many customers ask us what concentration of ethylene glycol we recommend they use in their chillers, cooling systems, and/or liquid cooling loops. It depends quite a bit on your thermal and mechanical requirements, such as required thermal performance, how often you replace your fluids, if you are concerned about corrosion, etc. For most applications, however, we recommend using a solution consisting of 30% ethylene glycol and 70% water (EGW). Water has the best thermal performance, while the inhibited glycol provides freezing point suppression and corrosion protection.

When higher concentrations of glycol are used, it can cause problems within your cooling loop. Over time, the concentration of glycol will increase due to evaporation of water from the system. When the glycol concentration is too high, glycol will collect in pump seals forcing them apart and creating a leak path.

What concentration of glycol are you using? Have you experienced any problems in the past because of your glycol concentration? Please share your experiences.

Lytron Liquid Cooling Blog

There are thousands of individuals around the world involved with liquid cooling. As heat loads continue to rise, engineers are turning to liquid cooling technologies more and more to solve their thermal management challenges. In the Liquid Cooling Blog, we will provide expert advice on liquid cooling and thermal management technologies, as well as share our opinions on industry, events, and news. We encourage you to share your knowledge, insights, and constructive feedback as well by posting a comment or question. We look forward to your participation and/or contributions!