Optimizing Containment: Engineering the Sustainable Data Center

Introduction

Environmental consciousness is not just a trend. We can’t rapidly mend the hole in the ozone layer and climate change concerns won’t be undermined by ever-evolving technology any time soon. Humankind has a collective responsibility to reduce our carbon emissions, to lower waste, and to change the way we create and use energy in our day-to-day lives. However, it’s a constant challenge for organizations to balance scalability, operational efficiency and power resourcefulness with sustainability objectives.

Data centers are hugely energy-intensive buildings. Handling an increasingly growing capacity and complexity of AI and high-performance computing (HPC) means they are consistently using an aggressive amount of power and energy. It’s imperative that we minimize the environmental impact of these buildings, reducing the power consumed while maximizing the energy that is used. New strategies need to be implemented, sustainable materials deployed, and a mindset change to get to net zero and stay there.

Goals and Objectives

Reduce, recycle, and reuse policies should be integrated in every organization’s core values; however, longer-term environmental goals that support a sustainable infrastructure built with energy-efficient technologies and renewable energy sources must be considered when redesigning or extending legacy data center facilities, or building new ones.

One of the best strategies to accomplish sustainability objectives in these buildings is by utilizing optimized containment. Optimizing containment is a vital first step toward achieving a sustainable data center and can significantly reduce unfavorable environmental consequences. 

After the ITE, cooling is the biggest consumer of a facility’s energy resources. Containment strategies decrease energy waste and efficiently regulate airflow. This enables data centers to maximize and boost operational efficiency while minimizing their impact on the environment.

Utilizing containment helps maintain consistent thermal temperatures and increases cooling effectiveness by keeping the hot and cold air streams separate, enabling a regulated airflow environment and increasing the efficiency of the cooling systems. This way data centers can conserve energy, not consume more.

Traditionally, an AisleFrame containment system is made of steel. This provides an integral floor supported structure that physically separates the cooled and expelled hot air. With excellent sustainability credentials, steel is 100% recyclable and can be melted down and reused time and again without deterioration. Through closed-loop recycling, every ton of steel scrap recovered can replace one ton of primary steelmaking while keeping its integrity in terms of properties or performance. In addition, steel's long lifespan and minimal maintenance requirements contribute to its overall sustainability attestation. On the flip side however, decarbonizing remains a challenge and a global priority, and steelmaking currently contributes around 8% of the world's total carbon emissions.

The Alternative

Composite AisleFrame (CAF) is a system made from alternative and sustainable materials and is a frame-based, floor supported structure for IT/HPC deployments. Used in the construction industry for more than 20 years in many proven applications, such as airplane tail structures, outdoor utility/telephone poles, and transportation bridges, this composite material has now been refined for specific use in data centers to be denser, stronger, and with additional fireproof properties. 

CAF has many benefits compared with a Steel AisleFrame system. Every element in a data center has an intrinsic cost that needs to be accounted for, and steel is a heavy material. This translates to high transit costs and increased installation times that must be factored into the build.

In comparison, CAF material is 50% lighter than steel alternatives. It can be installed swiftly without the need for powder coating and is easily reconfigurable as requirements change, offering more flexibility and easier scalability. It can be reused multiple times and has an extended lifespan over steel, supporting waste reduction and net-zero initiatives, leading to lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). It can be flat-packed, allowing more product to be shipped in the same physical footprint, and delivers on lower transportation emissions and costs, offering up to 4,299 kg CO₂ savings per frame compared with non-recycled steel and up to 429 kg CO₂ savings per frame compared with recycled steel.

CAF’s strength per linear meter and its seismic compliance enable multi-level data centers to have CAF systems running throughout each building floor without the additional financial risk of having to strengthen weight-bearing floors. Its higher tensile and flexural attributes, with a better compressive strength-to-weight ratio than steel, mean CAF is more efficient structurally.

While steel is resource-heavy, CAF is non-resource-heavy in implementation. This means the CAF system can be delivered and installed in a fast and time-appropriate fashion. A steel structure can potentially take months to be shipped, but CAF could conceivably be delivered in weeks.

Conclusion

As the industry shifts to using greener technology, the development of a sustainable infrastructure built with energy-efficient technologies continues to be a key strategy in the next generation of high-performance data centers.

Renowned for being hugely power-intensive buildings, data center operatives must constantly investigate strategies and technologies to lower their TCO. Whether restructuring, redesigning, or building from scratch, the cost savings accredited to CAF can contribute to a much quicker return on investment in data center infrastructure. And it’s a win-win when you’re lowering operational costs and optimizing the facility’s high performance and reliability at the same time as achieving long-term global environmental objectives.