[Beowulf] 'liquid cooled' racks

[Richard Walsh]

Jim Lux wrote:
> At 03:45 PM 12/5/2006, Richard Walsh wrote:
>> Greg Lindahl wrote:
>>> On Tue, Dec 05, 2006 at 12:11:07PM -0600, Richard Walsh wrote:
>>>> One of the key innovations on the Cray X1 is that the circuits are 
>>>> "on the ceiling"
>>>> so to speak and sprayed from below.  The fluid is gravity collected 
>>>> and cycled up again.
>>> This technology predates the X1 by a while.
>>>
>>    Mmm ... I did not know that ... in a reasonably successful 
>> commercial product (i.e. an innovation, rather
>>    than a mere invention)?   What was/is/were/are the product(s)?
>>    Perhaps outside of HPC ...
>
> This has been around for quite a while (decades at least).  It was in 
> a Fluorinert brochure back in the mid 80s that I recall.  There's also 
> versions with ebullient (boiling) cooling.  There might even be high 
> power vacuum tubes cooled this way, although I think they either tend 
> to use a cooling jacket or a boiler, as opposed to spraying).
>
 This is drifting away from the useful, but I was asking what other 
successful HPC (or computing generally)
 product has used a spray-cool, gravity collection system the like Cray 
X1.  I am not saying there isn't one, just
 asking someone to tell what it is.

 And as a side note, to me innovation implies successful commercial 
application ... I understand that evaporation
 is a cooling process ... ;-) ...

 rbw

-- 

Richard B. Walsh

"The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one
 perceived. The subject and object are but one."

Erwin Schroedinger

Project Manager
Network Computing Services, Inc.
Army High Performance Computing Research Center (AHPCRC)
rbw at ahpcrc.org  |  612.337.3467

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