Built into the module
Cooling designed as part of the module rather than fitted to it — envelope, structure, weight, service access and airflow resolved together.
Innovalyst LLC · Frederick, Maryland
Cooling for modular data centers
Product design, thermal engineering and certification support for modular data center cooling, liquid cooling, refrigeration and air handling systems — from concept and performance calculations through prototype, test and production.
Modular data center cooling
Liquid cooling & CDUs
Adiabatic & evaporative
Chillers & heat pumps
Rooftop & air handling units
Focus
Modular data centers
A modular data center is a factory problem as much as a thermal one. The cooling has to fit an envelope that ships on a truck, be built and proven before it leaves the floor, and hold its capacity at site conditions specified months earlier. That is the work we do.
Proven before it ships
Prototyping and factory testing, so capacity, balance and control sequences are verified on the floor instead of discovered on site.
Air and liquid
DX, chilled water, evaporative and adiabatic systems, and liquid cooling with coolant distribution units for high-density racks.
Held to the numbers
Performance calculations, system balance and yearly energy analysis, so the design meets its rated duty across the ambient range.
Capabilities
How can we help?
Three connected areas of work. Most projects draw on all three — a new cooling product needs the mechanical design, the controls and analysis software, and the certification path handled together rather than handed between vendors.
Product Design
Thermal and mechanical systems, concept to production.
- Components selection
- Cabinet sheet metal design
- System balance
- Performance calculations
- System controls
ExperienceModular data center cooling, air conditioning units, adiabatic units, rooftop units, heat pumps, liquid cooling, chillers.
App & Software Development
Software that supports the product and the plant behind it.
- Process improvement and automation
- Thermal analysis
- Yearly energy analysis
- Equipment selection and capacity calculations
ExperienceCoil selection software, refrigeration system balancing, yearly power usage and efficiency, production process automation.
Product Certification Support
Getting a compliant product through its approvals.
- Certification project management
- Product upgrades to meet regulatory requirements
- Energy efficiency compliance
- Test planning and documentation
ProgramsETL · DOE · AHRI · PED
Project experience
Selected work
Cooling systems that shipped, in demanding modular and liquid-cooled data center applications.
DX modular cooling systems
- Concept design collaboration with the OEM
- Mechanical and controls lead engineer
- Project management
Evaporative and adiabatic cooling systems
- Concept design collaboration with the OEM
- Mechanical and controls lead engineer
- Prototyping and testing
Coolant distribution unit (CDU)
- Designed to customer specification
- Mechanical and controls lead engineer
- Prototyping and testing
DX and chilled water cooling systems
- Concept design collaboration with the OEM
- Mechanical and controls lead engineer
- Prototyping and testing
Refrigeration balancing and unit selection tool
- Integrated vendor DLL files
- Built an iterative routine to balance the system
- Calculated EER and SEER per ASHRAE standards
Representative project types drawn from our principal's engineering experience, including work delivered prior to founding Innovalyst LLC. Client names and project details available on request.
Referrals
From the people who ran the programs
Written by the technologists who led these developments on the customer side.
[Our principal's] detailed experience on all the components from top to bottom of the refrigerant chain, and the thermal design tradeoffs as we varied load, external ambient, required server inlet, and server delta T, allowed [the OEM] to make a best-in-class solution. [They were] a champion for the customer, and knew all the supply chain, service and controls aspects to make a modular solution that we could use and evolve over several generations of products.
I worked closely with [our principal] on the development of an industry-first coolant distribution unit (CDU) … capable of creating a sub-atmospheric cooling environment. The project was complicated, demanding, and on a very short timeline … [Our principal] and the team were extremely cooperative and accommodating, and were able to deliver the CDU in a short period. This CDU set the stage for subsequent rapid developments in the industry as liquid cooling is now being widely deployed.
Quotations are the authors' own words, edited only to remove individual and client names. Bracketed text marks those substitutions; ellipses mark omitted passages.
About
Innovation is at the core of everything we do
We provide engineering, technical and programmatic support to companies building thermal products.
Innovalyst LLC brings decades of experience in product design, process automation and program management to customers who need more than a drawing package — people who need the thermal engineering, the controls, the analysis software, the compliance work and the schedule all held together by a team that has shipped this kind of product before.
We stay involved from first concept through prototyping, certification and production, and we work to understand and anticipate what a program will need before it needs it.
- Focus
- Modular data center cooling, refrigeration and air handling
- Disciplines
- Mechanical design, controls, thermal analysis, software
- Certification
- ETL, DOE, AHRI, PED
- Approach
- Concept through prototype, test and production
- Based in
- Frederick, Maryland
We can create a more sustainable world together by using efficient cooling
Tell us what you're building. We'll tell you honestly whether we're the right people to help — and if we are, what it would take.
Contact
Get in touch
Email is the fastest way to reach us. Tell us the application, the duty and the constraints, and we'll come back to you.
2137 Chestnut Lane
Frederick, MD 21702
United States
Frederick, MD 21702
United States