Heat removal is a prominent factor in computer system and data center design. The number of information technology (IT) components such as servers deployed within a data center has steadily increased as the server performance has improved, thereby increasing the amount of heat generated during the ordinary operation of the servers. The reliability of servers used within a data center decreases if the environment in which they operate is permitted to increase in temperature over time. A significant portion of the data center's power is used for cooling electronics at the server level. As the number of servers within a data center increases, a greater portion of the power is commensurately consumed by the data center to cool electronic components within the servers. This data center increase also increases the power and associated cost for data center operations.
Fans are extensively utilized to cool modern IT equipment and utilize up to ten percent of the total electrical power of the IT equipment. Improvements to efficiency of a fan and the fan's operations will directly impact the performance and operating cost of IT equipment. The efficiency of the fan is affected by many factors, such as an electrical loss from an electrical source to a fan, an internal electrical loss within the fan, and a mechanical loss within the fan. Conventionally in data center structures, improvements to fan efficiency is accomplished by IT cooling fans that have improvements within the fan. For example, three phase fan motors improve electrical efficiency and have become more readily available. Mechanical and aerodynamic refinements have also improved mechanical efficiency.
However, such configurations may improve the efficiency of the fan itself, but there remains opportunity to improve the electrical conversion and power distribution to fans of electronic racks located at the data centers. Further, such configurations are cost inefficient and not flexible.