Measurement of Perforated Tile Airflow in Data Centers (OR-16-007)

The cooling performance of a raised-floor data center is dominated by its ability to deliver adequate cooling airflow to IT equipment through perforated tiles. Although many studies have focused on the design of plenum systems and the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics to predict tile airflow rates, very little has been published regarding accurately measuring airflows in existing facilities. We investigate the ability of a commercially-available passive flow hood to accurately measure data center tile airflow.