Dual Cooling Of Your Data Centre
Data centre cooling has many schools of thought. The basic under floor open plenum designs have strong proponents with some opting for a ducted supply instead, arguing inefficiency and waste in open floor layouts being their reasoning. Others suggest that as long as there is enough floor depth as to not impact on the air flow, they are in actuality superior and more efficient since they inherently provide less resistance to air flow.
This also saves fan energy since less power is required to move air. Room thermostat set points can be kept higher than the set points for overhead systems. Of course close coordination between air supply diffusers and the equipment layout above the grated floor is a must to keep the added efficiency from being canceled out due to air flow resistance from the equipment above it.
The consensus is that under floor plenum distribution aided by properly placed overhead air returns and ceiling diffusers in critical locations provide a proper balance of supply air that admittedly places a larger burden on return air duct placement.
Utilizing multiple paths of raised floor and over head distribution together in the data centre is a beneficial idea as both designs have their own advantages and disadvantages and use those strong points of both options to help lessen their weak points. Doing an overhead run in addition to the floor distribution becomes cost effective when the data centre deploys overhead data cabling as well.