Facilitating Air Cooling for Data Centers - Chomerics Division | Parker US
Facilitating Air Cooling for Data Centers

Heat management is an important consideration when designing high-performing data centers that are capable of carrying an intense and ever-growing workload. Modern data centers consist of thousands of individual servers contained within server racks, each of which contains individual mother boards, processors, memory, power supplies, and cooling features that support data processing, data transmission and data storage. That kind of large-scale, high-performing operation can quickly generate a lot of heat, which can impact system performance if left unmitigated.  

Driven air is one strategy that works well to cool these appliances, particularly at the board level. These systems bring in cool air and push it over heat-generating components before pulling that hot air away, helping to regulate server temperatures and maintain optimal operating conditions.

Benefits of EMI Shielding Air Ventilation Panels

There are many things to consider when designing for high-performing air-cooling systems, such as where the fans will be located. These fans are generally placed directly onto or adjacent to the circuit board with ventilation features mounted onto the server rack. One family of electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding products that works well for this placement is EMI shielding air ventilation panels, also known as honeycomb vent panels. These panels can be attached either onto the chassis that’s on the actual rack or in front of the fan on the circuit board itself. 

Air vents for noise reduction in data centers

Utilizing honeycomb vent panels in these configurations provides many benefits. First, the vent panels provide very effective EMI shielding in an open space. This is important because in these scenarios, the goal is to minimize gaps sizes that may lead to interference, and these vents do exactly that. Balancing effective airflow with limited pressure drop while reducing large non-conductive gaps is the key feature of honeycomb vent panels. Additionally, these vents provide effective air flow by allowing the fans to efficiently distribute air over the circuit board. 

An added benefit of EMI shielding air ventilation panels is noise reduction. Through internal research at Parker Chomerics as well as feedback from leading contract manufacturers in the data center hardware space, we’ve learned that honeycomb vents can notably reduce the noise that’s coming from these fans. Consider how loud the space can become when you have four to eight fans on a server, then 10-20 servers within a server rack, and thousands of server racks within a data center. Reducing the noise by just a couple decibel makes a big difference and preliminary data shows a 6-10 dB reduction in noise. 

Faster Production, Higher Quality

At Parker Chomerics, we’re committed to providing our customers with high-quality products on their timelines. One way we’re meeting these needs is by investing time and resources into automation technology that is yielding big benefits for our clients.

To create EMI shielding air ventilation panels, we start with stainless steel ribbon then use automation to weld it together into a honeycomb pattern. Stainless steel is much more durable than other material options such as aluminum or metalized plastic vents, which means it doesn’t have to be replaced as often. Additionally, stainless steel stands up to any type of impact, so if you’re replacing the fans and accidentally hit the vent, the risk of it being damaged or bent is greatly reduced. Stainless steel as a raw material means that no additional plating processes are required and the vents are inherently corrosion resistant. Stainless steel vents allow for a greater open area (>93%) within the ventilation panel, further improving airflow characteristics over other solutions.

Automation is also allowing us to greatly reduce lead times while remaining cost-competitive, two big benefits for our customers. We have the ability to prototype vents in one to two weeks and provide production parts in four to five weeks, significantly faster than our competitors’ lead times of 20-25 weeks.

At Parker Chomerics, we can meet demand quickly with a better product at an equivalent or competitive price point. Reach out today for a free product sample and explore how EMI shielding air ventilation panels can improve your data centers’ performance. 

Blog Post contributed by Ben Nudelman, Global Market Manager, Chomerics Division.

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