When it comes to speed and agility, demountable cooling systems are the ideal solution.
Summit Matsu Chillers general manager, Daniel Rollston, outlines a number of demountable success stories and poses the question – are demountable cooling systems the future of data centre cooling?
Faster build times, and the emergence in the data centre market of containerised data centres or PODs, have created a need in the market for demountable cooling systems.
Demountable systems are package solutions that contain chillers, water pumps, thermal buffer storage tanks, controls, all manufactured as a package, ready for fast deployment to any location.
Summit Matsu Chillers has supplied many demountable cooling systems to data centres and mine sites throughout Australia.
Featured here is a project overview covering the HP POD system for the Pawsey Centre in WA, supplied to Hewlett Packard for iVEC – a joint venture between the CSIRO and the four public WA universities, and installed at Murdoch University.
The iVEC HP POD supercomputer was launched on 8 June, 2011 as stage 1A of the $80 million Pawsey Centre Project, commissioned under the federal government's $1.1 billion Super Science Initiative.
The POD entered the Global Supercomputer top 500 list at #87, second in Australia only to a Canberra facility at #51.
The supercomputer will be used for comparative genomics, biomedical and agricultural research and development, radio astronomy, nanoscience, geoscience and life science.
The extraordinary increase in computational capacity was part of Australia's successful bid to host the Square Kilometre Array – a radio telescope in development in both Australia and South Africa which will have a collecting area of approximately one square kilometre.
The demountable cooling system incorporated three 125kW shell and tube chillers in an N+1 configuration using high efficiency Refcomp screw compressors.
The chillers were factory fabricated on a common skid, with all interconnected pipe work and cabling factory fitted. All water fittings necessary for commissioning were factory fitted.
Separate to the chillers, a containerised pump and tank station was manufactured which incorporated a 30,000 litre insulated storage tank, chiller pumps, data centre pumps, together will all controls, electrical connections, and pipework.
All PLC programming, cabling, and electrical work was completed in the factory.
Because of the small footprint required by the client, the system was designed so that the chillers could be mounted directly on top of the container, and a work platform including access stairway was also factory-fitted and supplied.
Total site works were kept to a minimum. The engineers spent less than seven days on site coordinating the reassembly of the work platform, cranage of chillers onto the pump and tank module, and connecting piping between the POD and the demountable cooling system.
Summit Matsu Chillers is able to supply demountable cooling systems for data centre projects, mining projects, and process cooling in Australia and worldwide.
To view the construction phase of the iVEC project view here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O8_vaq5aSI
