Controlled cooling of an electronic system based on projected conditions

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9342079-B2
Application number	US-201313775545-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 25, 2013
Priority date	Jun 20, 2012
Publication date	May 17, 2016
Grant date	May 17, 2016

Abstract

Energy efficient control of a cooling system cooling an electronic system is provided based, in part, on projected conditions. The control includes automatically determining an adjusted control setting(s) for an adjustable cooling component(s) of the cooling system. The automatically determining is based, at least in part, on projected power consumed by the electronic system at a future time and projected temperature at the future time of a heat sink to which heat extracted is rejected. The automatically determining operates to reduce power consumption of the cooling system and/or the electronic system while ensuring that at least one targeted temperature associated with the cooling system or the electronic system is within a desired range. The automatically determining may be based, at least in part, on an experimentally obtained model(s) relating the targeted temperature and power consumption of the adjustable cooling component(s) of the cooling system.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of cooling of an electronic system comprising:
providing a cooling system comprising a controller, the cooling system cooling the electronic system, the controller:
automatically determining at least one adjusted control setting for at least one adjustable cooling component of the cooling system cooling the electronic system, the automatically determining being based, at least in part, on a determination of projected power consumed by the electronic system at a future time and a determination of projected temperature at the future time of a heat sink to which heat extracted by the cooling system is ultimately rejected; and

applying the automatically determined at least one adjusted control setting for the at least one cooling component to facilitate reducing power consumption of at least one of the cooling system or the electronic system while ensuring that at least one targeted temperature associated with at least one of the cooling system or the electronic system is within a desired range.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the controller further comprises ascertaining the projected power consumed by the electronic system at the future time and the projected temperature at the future time of the heat sink, the ascertaining comprising determining a rate of change of power currently being consumed by the electronic system and a rate of change of current temperature of the heat sink, and employing the rate of change of the power consumed and the rate of change of the temperature of the heat sink in ascertaining the projected power consumed by the electronic system at the future time and the projected temperature at the future time of the heat sink.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the controller further comprises ascertaining the projected power consumed by the electronic system at the future time and ascertaining the projected temperature at the future time of the heat sink, the ascertaining comprising referencing historical variations in power consumed by the electronic system and temperature of the heat sink to which heat extracted by the cooling system is rejected, and based on the historical variations, predicting for the future time the projected power consumed by the electronic system and the projected temperature of the heat sink.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the controller further comprises ascertaining the projected power consumed by the electronic system at the future time and the projected temperature at the future time of the heat sink to which heat extracted by the cooling system is rejected, the ascertaining comprising:
predicting, based on historical variations in the power consumed by the electronic system and the temperature of the heat sink, a predicted power consumed by the electronic system at a current time and a predicted temperature of the heat sink at the current time;
determining a power difference between actual power consumed by the electronic system at the current time and the predicted power consumed by the electronic system at the current time, and determining a temperature difference between the actual temperature of the heat sink at the current time and the predicted temperature of the heat sink at the current time;
employing the historical variations in the power consumed by the electronic system and the temperature of the heat sink in determining a historically-based, predicted power consumed by the electronic system at the future time and a historically-based, predicted temperature at the future time of the heat sink; and
modifying the historically-based, predicted power consumed by the electronic system at the future time by the determined power difference to ascertain the projected power consumed by the electronic system at the future time, and modifying the historically-based, predicted temperature at the future time of the heat sink by the temperature difference to ascertain the projected temperature at the future time of the heat sink.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the automatically determining is based, at least in part, on one or more experimentally-obtained models relating the at least one targeted temperature and the power consumption of the at least one adjustable cooling component of the cooling system cooling the electronic system.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the automatically determining comprises automatically determining multiple adjustable control settings for controlling multiple adjustable cooling components of the cooling system, and wherein the automatically determining comprises automatically determining partial derivatives with respect to power consumed by the multiple adjustable cooling components of the cooling system, and using the partial derivatives in selecting a particular cooling component of the multiple adjustable cooling components to adjust at a particular time to ensure that the at least one targeted temperature is within the desired range while, at least in part, minimizing power consumption of the cooling system.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the heat sink comprises outdoor ambient air, and the at least one adjustable cooling component comprises at least one adjustable coolant pump or adjustable fan, and wherein the controller further comprises applying the automatically determined at least one adjustable control setting to the at least one adjustable cooling component of the cooling system to incrementally reduce power consumption of the cooling system while ensuring that the at least one targeted temperature is within the desired range.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one targeted temperature comprises a temperature of coolant within the cooling system cooling the electronic system, and wherein the desired range is between a specified upper temperature for the at least one targeted temperature and a dew point temperature of the coolant within the cooling system, and wherein the automatically determining operates to incrementally reduce power consumption of at least one of the cooling system or the electronic system, while ensuring that the at least one targeted temperature is within the desired range.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• David Milnes P
• Iyengar Madhusudan K
• Schmidt Roger R

Classifications

• G05D23/1919 Primary

  characterised by the type of controller · CPC title

• G05D23/00 Primary

  Control of temperature · CPC title

• H05K7/20836

  Thermal management, e.g. server temperature control · CPC title