Articles by Kevin Dickens, P.E.
With Hurricane Sandy fresh in our minds, let’s examine the anatomy of a recent outage’s immediate HVAC consequences as a guide toward protecting equipment in the future.
March 29, 2013
October 29 was a Monday. It was also the day that Hurricane Sandy made landfall in New York City. Around 7 p.m., Con Edison shut power off in Lower Manhattan, and it would be sometime Saturday before lights would begin to flicker back on.
Read More
March 23, 2012
New ideas, regulations, and equipment are making some designs outdated faster than ever. How to take in an ever-evolving landscape, take a deep breath, and provide a data center design to stay proud of? Learn about an integrated VAV approach, the only control point that really matters, and more.
Read More
January 10, 2012
So Charles Dickens, Ferris Bueller, a chicken, and a pig walk into an HVAC article … and try to sort out proper use of outdoor air in data centers. As you might imagine, it’s not simple. But if you remember these three design absolutes and consider your client’s specific perspective, the resulting efficiencies might have you singing Wayne Newton at the prospect of repeat business.
Read More
October 1, 2010
You’redesigning a data center. Which certification makes the most sense? Do
you really know how ASHRAE 90.1 does (or doesn’t apply) to your
project? Where have the mission critical bigwigs put their focus?
Develop perfect pitch for the differences involved and see why the
author prefers to play in the key of ENERGY STAR.
Read More
August 1, 2010
When
it comes to data center environments, both the temperature/humidity
parameters and the conventional wisdom about designing for them have
been, well, a little narrow. Look over the results of advanced
research and then dig out the owner’s manual of your client’s
servers, and you may be ready to make the leap to an equally
effective, much less wasteful design.
Read More
April 1, 2010
The
recent leaps forward in data center cooling may not quite rival the
progress from hand calculation to CFD, but progress has been fast and
furious nonetheless. The road to efficiency has widened as the
cooling focus has narrowed from the room’s air to the room’s
equipment. How did we get here? And what would a potential next step
- chip-level cooling - entail? Read, reflect, and ponder.
Read More
August 1, 2009
In
which the author isn’t trying to stir up trouble, really. As a
society, we may not like to know exactly how the demands of modern
technology get supported. But as designers, we have a duty to hone in
on the physics of the data center situation, avoiding prefab filler
and delivering answers that cut the mustard.
Read More
September 1, 2008
We often think of the road to green and the road to LEED® as being one and the same. However, if your destination is a data center, mapping the current requirements reveals that the true green path may bypass this popular certification.
Read More
May 1, 2008
Here in the second of two parts, the author is reminded that data center design is no vacation. He does, however, discover that what doesn’t work on the road to Orlando doesn’t work in the data cen-ter, either. What to do? Truly isolating the heat at its origin and backing around to a classic VAV pressure reset strategy eventually yielded a cool solution for everyone not working in the hot aisle.
Read More
April 1, 2008
A data center the size of a football field and an owner with sustainable mandates made it hard for this project team to just take the conventional wisdom and run with it. In part one of two, the author winds up eating some crow but conquers the problem. Get ready for an old-school system comparison, but focus on rack entering conditions instead of average space conditions, and check those design expectations at the door.
Read More
On-Demand The presentation will be a discussion of current and emerging mechanical best practices informed by real world experience and project based analysis.
With access to over one million professionals and more than 60 industry-specific publications,Clear Seas Research offers relevant insights from those who know your industry best. Let us customize a market research solution that exceeds your marketing goals.
