How to simulate data center cooling: 1 mw it load on warm-water free cooling
A 1 MW data hall cooled the way modern halls are: a warm-water loop — chilled-water supply at 27 °C rather than the legacy 7 °C — picks up the IT heat (10 K rise at 24 kg/s), hands it across a plate exchanger to a condenser-water loop, and an evaporative cooling tower rejects all of it to an 18 °C wet bulb with a 6 K approach. No chiller runs: that is free cooling, and it is only possible because the supply is warm — a 7 °C loop cannot be served by a tower whose water cannot get below the wet bulb plus its approach, which is the whole reason the industry moved to warm-water and ASHRAE's wider allowable envelopes. The tower reports the numbers a data-center operator is judged on: 24.6 mol/s (0.44 kg/s) of evaporation and 32.8 mol/s of makeup water at four cycles of concentration — the water-usage effectiveness (WUE) story. Sweep the IT load and watch the makeup water scale with it. Honest scope: the IT load is a specified duty (no per-rack or airflow model); both loops are drawn open, supply to return, where a plant recirculates with makeup; the tower is a heat and water balance with a Merkel characteristic, not a fill-vendor rating; and a thermal_storage block on the chilled loop would give the ride-through buffer a real hall carries for a chiller or tower trip.
- 1Open the ready-made model
Open the "Data center cooling: 1 MW IT load on warm-water free cooling" model in the MaximaLabs workspace — no install, no license. It loads live on the canvas, ready to edit and run.
- 2Confirm the thermodynamics
This process is modeled with the NRTL property package over water — already selected, so the phase equilibrium and enthalpy are physically consistent from the first run.
- 3Review the flowsheet
The flowsheet chains IT LOAD, Plate HX, Tower. Every block is a real, solvable unit op you can reconfigure on the canvas.
- 4Run the simulation
Click Run. The deterministic solver converges the material and energy balances (recycles included) and fills the live stream table — the AI never invents a number.
- 5Read the results and iterate
Inspect the converged streams, tweak a spec, and re-run — or ask the AI copilot to explain a result or diagnose a failed solve in plain English.
- Thermodynamics
- NRTL
- Components
- water
- Unit operations
- IT LOADPlate HXTower
Opens live on the canvas — free, no install.
Explore the model & flowsheetFrequently asked questions
- What does the Data center cooling: 1 MW IT load on warm-water free cooling model simulate?
- A 1 MW data hall cooled the way modern halls are: a warm-water loop — chilled-water supply at 27 °C rather than the legacy 7 °C — picks up the IT heat (10 K rise at 24 kg/s), hands it across a plate exchanger to a condenser-water loop, and an evaporative cooling tower rejects all of it to an 18 °C wet bulb with a 6 K approach. No chiller runs: that is free cooling, and it is only possible because the supply is warm — a 7 °C loop cannot be served by a tower whose water cannot get below the wet bulb plus its approach, which is the whole reason the industry moved to warm-water and ASHRAE's wider allowable envelopes. The tower reports the numbers a data-center operator is judged on: 24.6 mol/s (0.44 kg/s) of evaporation and 32.8 mol/s of makeup water at four cycles of concentration — the water-usage effectiveness (WUE) story. Sweep the IT load and watch the makeup water scale with it. Honest scope: the IT load is a specified duty (no per-rack or airflow model); both loops are drawn open, supply to return, where a plant recirculates with makeup; the tower is a heat and water balance with a Merkel characteristic, not a fill-vendor rating; and a thermal_storage block on the chilled loop would give the ride-through buffer a real hall carries for a chiller or tower trip.
- Which thermodynamic method does it use?
- The NRTL property package, over water — already selected. You can switch the method on the canvas before running.
- Which unit operations are in the flowsheet?
- It chains IT LOAD, Plate HX, Tower. Every block is a real, solvable unit operation you can reconfigure, add to, or remove.
- Do I need to install software or buy a license?
- No. Data center cooling: 1 MW IT load on warm-water free cooling runs entirely in your browser on MaximaLabs — free, no install, no license. Open the model to load it live and run the deterministic solver.
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