Water-Cooled Servers Common Designs, Components, and Processes

With more water-cooled IT products arriving in the marketplace, ASHRAE TC 9.9 felt the need to outline some of the common processes, parts, and materi- als for focus in use for future water-cooled designs. Some parts in a water-cooled IT system will be specific to the product design, such as cold plates, manifolds, arrangement of piping, pumps, valves, and so on, but others such as quick con- nects, hoses, hose connections, materials, and water chemistry fall more into the category of common parts that can be used by all current and potential manufac- turers of water-cooled IT equipment. This white paper is an attempt to provide and make available those items that could be classified as common. The material published in this white paper compliments the materials published in Liquid Cool- ing Guidelines for Datacom Equipment Centers, second edition (ASHRAE 2014).

Beyond the objective stated above, this white paper also corrects misunder- standings in the latest edition of Liquid Cooling Guidelines for Datacom Equip- ment Centers, and provides guidance for avoiding common mistakes based upon the book’s content. We also expect that much of the content in this white paper will be incorporated into a future third edition.