North American Network Operators Group

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Re: cooling systems

  • From: Eric Kuhnke
  • Date: Wed Nov 05 15:46:03 2003


The Arctic Region Supercomputing Centre in Fairbanks, Alaska would be a good candidate for this...
* <http://www.arsc.edu/resources/yukon.html>Yukon -- 272-processor CRAY T3E
* <http://www.arsc.edu/resources/chilkoot.html>Chilkoot -- 32-processor CRAY SV1ex
* <http://www.arsc.edu/resources/klondike.html>Klondike -- 512-processor CRAY X1
* <http://www.arsc.edu/resources/icehawk.html>Icehawk -- 200-processor IBM SP
* <http://www.arsc.edu/resources/iceflyer.html>Iceflyer -- 32-processor IBM Regatta
* <http://www.arsc.edu/resources/iceberg.html>Iceberg -- 800-processor IBM System
* <http://www.arsc.edu/resources/rime.html>Rime -- 8-processor CRAY SX-6
http://www.arsc.edu/

For those who have never visited Fairbanks, there is a phenomena observed at -15C and lower known as "square tire". The rubber in tires of parked vehicles will become stiff and freeze into position, making the vehicle impossible to move without destroying the tires. To the best of my knowledge the ARSC does have conventional AC units, as Fairbanks reaches +24C and higher in mid summer.

-Eric Kuhnke

At 11:49 AM 11/5/2003 -0600, you wrote:

I've seen some designs that actually use water as the transport and
many-finned radiators at each end.  Radiator transfer heat into cold water
inside which is pumped up a radiator in the sub-zero temps on the roof and
exchanged and then looped back.

Same basic principle as a traditional residential heat-pump that loops
through the ground 20 feet down or so.

I think using straight air would probably not be as efficient as a
closed-loop water transfer.