About This Session
As data centers push toward higher power densities and tighter uptime requirements, the margin for error in cooling system design has narrowed considerably. Flow simulation has become a core validation tool for mechanical engineers working on hyperscale builds, colocation facilities, and infrastructure upgrades, not a post-design check but an active design instrument.
In this ASME-hosted webinar, Jeffrey Scanlan, Senior Mechanical Engineer at Swanson Rink, presents three case studies from their mission-critical project portfolio demonstrating how Fathom is used to design, size, and stress-test data center chilled water and liquid cooling systems. Whether your team runs flow simulation on every project or hasn’t yet adopted a dedicated tool, these case studies show where simulation has the most immediate payoff: sizing decisions constrained by manufacturer equipment data and tight redundancy requirements.
Case Study 1: Sizing Liquid Cooling Distribution Systems
Liquid cooling introduces tighter flow tolerances and zero-downtime requirements that chilled water systems often don’t face. This case study demonstrates how Fathom models CDU pump curves to validate flow delivery at individual racks, and how failure scenarios, including a CDU going offline, require piping resizes to maintain minimum rack-level flow rates. The session also covers why UPS-backed pumps are standard for liquid cooling continuity.
Case Study 2: Solving for Pump Head, New Construction
When load and flow requirements are known but infrastructure constraints limit pump sizing options, Fathom is used to solve for the required pump head under both normal operation and equipment failure scenarios. The session covers how failure modes, including valve shutdowns that force flow through a single redundant path, affect pump head requirements and how those results drive final pump selection.
Case Study 3: Validating an Existing Facility Upgrade
A client facility with 4.5 MW of available utility power needed to scale IT load from 3 MW to 6 MW without full infrastructure replacement. The session walks through how Fathom modeled the existing chilled water system alongside proposed CRAH units selected at a higher delta-T to reduce required flow rates, and how failure scenario modeling confirmed whether the existing distribution piping could support the expanded load.
Live Q&A
The session closes with audience Q&A covering hydraulic path optimization, tier redundancy trade-offs, UPS-to-generator power transfer sequences, and when transient analysis is warranted for failure scenario validation.
Who This Session Is For
This session is designed for mechanical engineers, EPC project engineers, and facilities teams working on data center design, cooling system validation, and infrastructure upgrades, particularly those responsible for chilled water and liquid cooling distribution at hyperscale, colocation, or enterprise facilities.
