Indiana University Data Center Infrastructure
Heapy Engineering designed the Mechanical-Electrical
systems for the infrastructure upgrade of Indiana University’s newly constructed Data Center to house their Research Supercomputer, “Big Red.”
Big Red is one of the most powerful university-owned computers in the US, and one of the 50 fastest supercomputers in the world. Part of a comprehensive strategy to build an advanced cyber infrastructure to support research at Indiana University, Big Red has a theoretical peak performance of more tha
n 30 teraflops, and has achieved more than 21 teraflops on numerical computations.
The mechanical infrastructure upgrades included a large, built-up cooling distribution system to circulate cooling water to the high-density rack mounted cooling units. Racks are equipped with rack direct, high density cooling units and utilize hot-aisle/cold-aisle cooling strategy. Heapy Engineering utilized CFD modeling of the data center rack layouts to ensure proper thermal and airflow performance of the high-density racks in the modified rack configuration.
The electrical infrastructure upgrade included new UPS systems based on both battery back-up and flywheel technology supporting dual cord power distribution for the rack systems.