Validated Thermal Air Management Simulations of Data Centers Using Remote Graphics Processing Units

Simulation tools for thermal management of data centers help to improve layout of new builds or analyse thermal problems in existing data centers. The development of LBM on remote GPUs as an approach for such simulations is discussed making use of VirtualGL and prioritised multi-threaded implementations of an existing LBM code. The simulation is configured to model an existing and highly monitored test data center. Steady-state root mean square averages of measured and simulated temperatures are compared showing good agreement. The full capability of this simulation approach is demonstrated when comparing rack temperatures against a time varying workload, which employs time-dependent boundary conditions.