Product category:
Design and Development Software
News Release from: Flomerics | Subject: Flovent
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 12 March 2008
Simulation is cool answer for
supercomputer lab
CFD simulations save money by determining exactly how much cooling capacity is required to handle current and projected thermal loads.
CH2M Hill engineers used Flomerics' Flovent computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software to simulate predicted thermal loads that will be generated by the IBM Roadrunner machine Roadrunner is projected to be in the top 10 on the HPC Top 500 list and will be installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory's Nicholas Metropolis Centre
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 27 Jun 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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By regularly modelling the facility, CH2M engineers have helped the DOE stay one step ahead of the continuously increasing thermal load while minimising initial and operating costs of cooling equipment.
"The CFD simulations have saved money by determining exactly how much cooling capacity is required to handle current and projected thermal loads and identifying design improvements that boost cooling efficiency", says Andy Solberg, CH2M Hill engineer.
IBM's Roadrunner will be capable of a sustained speed of up to 1000 trillion calculations per second or one petaflop.
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The Redback SE1200 platform contains a total of 12 line cards, whose power dissipation is substantially higher than the previous-generation product.
Roadrunner will use 16,000 Cell BE processors, which were originally designed for Sony Playstation video game platforms.
The supercomputer will also include 16,000 AMD Opteron processor cores.
The Roadrunner will primarily be used for simulations to ensure the safety and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile.
The Roadrunner occupies only a portion of the Metropolis Centre at the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), which is filled with other high performance computing equipment.
One of the key challenges of owning and operating this enormous computing resource is addressing the critical thermal management challenges.
A conventional data centre is composed of racks that typically dissipate between 2 and 6kW.
The high-density racks in the Metropolis Centre, on the other hand, dissipate up to 20kW per rack.
LANL first contracted with CH2M Hill several years ago to perform thermal simulation as part of planning for the installation of Roadrunner as well as other expansion projects in the centre.
"We use Flovent as our thermal simulation tool at CH2M Hill because it provides many features that simplify the task of modelling data centres", says Solberg.
"Flomerics also provides a team of support engineers that are experienced in addressing data centre cooling issues".
In September 2006 CH2M Hill modelled the west side of the Metropolis Centre in order to evaluate the effect of adding the Roadrunner Phase 1 and Phase 2 Equipment.
In 2007 CH2M HILL expanded the model to include the entire centre, including Roadrunner Phase 3 equipment and Tri-Lab capacity clusters scalable units (SUs).
The SUs are scalable high performance clusters used for a variety of research performed at the three sister national laboratories Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Sandia National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory "The simulation demonstrated that the heat loads involved in the operation of this data centre were managed well by the existing Metropolis Centre building design", Keith Kibbee, also a CH2M Hill engineer, concludes.
"It showed that the data centre could handle all of the equipment that had been planned and projected while adding 14 computer room air conditioners".
Furthermore, the engineering team used Flovent to test alternatives that optimise the use of the available cooling capacity before ever having to touch a perforated floor tile in the actual facility.
CH2M Hill engineers also developed several proposals to increase the cooling efficiency of the data centre so it could be able to handle even greater loads.
"We noted that the current facility has no physical barriers between hot aisles and cold aisles other than the server rack itself", Solberg said.
"Theoretically these changes could bring the cooling efficiency of the Metropolis Centre close to 100% and allow the thermal load in the data centre to be increased by approximately 20% without adding cooling capacity".
"This application demonstrates how simulation can save money in the data centre by more efficiently utilising available cooling resources". Request a free brochure from Flomerics ...
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