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Module 13 · Real Project

Real Project: Data Center Cooling Design

The cooling-side companion to this program's sibling Tier III data center electrical project — a 4.0 MW critical IT load converted almost entirely into a precision-cooling design problem, with N+1 CRAH units, hot aisle/cold aisle containment, and an N+1 chilled-water plant sized around the same concurrent-maintainability discipline as the electrical design.

The project brief: the same 650-rack, 4.0 MW enterprise data center from this program's electrical track, viewed from the mechanical side. Because virtually 100% of the electricity an IT rack consumes is converted directly into heat, the electrical load figure becomes this project's core heat-rejection requirement — and every downstream decision, from CRAC-vs-CRAH selection to chiller plant sizing, follows from precisely quantifying and removing that heat without ever interrupting it.

This module walks the whole project end to end: a full worked calculation converting 4.0 MW of IT load into tons of refrigeration and sizing both the N+1 CRAH layer and the N+1 chiller plant behind it, why chilled-water CRAH units are chosen over standalone CRAC units at this scale, cold aisle containment and ASHRAE TC9.9 thermal guidelines, and the waterside economizer that a central chilled-water plant uniquely makes possible. The full worked numbers and complete bill of materials are part of the unlocked module below.

Free related reading in this studio
→ Chiller Sizing Calculator→ Chiller Plant Simulator→ Energy Recovery Effectiveness Tool→ AHU Simulator

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