Computational Study of Behavior of Gas Absorption in Data Center Equipment and its Effects on the Rate of Corrosion/Contamination

The reliability of the data center equipment is being compromised as the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers recommendable psychometric limits are stretched outside the recommendable zones. When the ambient conditions are conducive enough the humidity and the gaseous contaminants present in the data centers react with the elements of Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) at various temperatures. The products of the reaction may lead to short circuit or extra resistance to the passage of current. This poses an increased threat to the reliability of the PCB. Contamination has become a serious problem in the developing nations like China and India where new data centers are rapidly coming up. The heavy industrialization and vehicular activities are the major source of the contamination. The losses due the corrosion of PCB by contaminants depends on various factors like concentration of gases, amount of humidity present, time of the day, location of the data center, filtration technique used for the air-conditioning system, etc. An actual study of effects of contaminants in data centers across the world would be a tedious task. Computational study saves the time as well as cost for this study. This research study gives deeper insights of the reaction mechanism. A computational study of the reaction of copper foils (representing the PCB) placed in a Paddle Wheel Test setup would be carried out. A Paddle Wheel Test setup gives us the flexibility to test various gases, that could pose a threat to data center equipment, without disturbing the actually data center servers. A reaction of hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide on copper in the presence of humidity will be carried out in this study.Copyright © 2015 by ASME