Submittal

RKAT05--WW-ENG, Rev 0, 12/2015

Panduit Net-Access™ Cabinet Doors Keep Data Center Equipment Cool and Secure

Overview

Data center equipment cabinets are provided with front and rear doors for aesthetics and security.

A potential tradeoff of installing cabinet doors is any negative impact that the doors may have on

the flow of air that must be drawn through the cabinets to cool the equipment housed inside.

Published studies have concluded that increasing the percent open area of front door perforations

will provide no meaningful benefit from an airflow perspective. However, some cabinet

manufacturers continue to market higher open area perforated doors as better. In this study, the

Panduit research team takes another look at this issue.

Cool air enters through the front door of IT equipment cabinets when fans draw air through the

chassis to cool the internal components and exhaust the warmed air out the rear of the cabinets.

Any airflow restriction either reduces the volumetric airflow rate drawn through the equipment

chassis, causing the equipment to operate at a higher temperature, or demands that the equipment

fans run faster to compensate, increasing the electrical energy required to keep the equipment

cool. Adding perforated doors in front of and behind IT equipment creates an airflow restriction. But

how does the magnitude of this restriction impact the operation of typical IT equipment? Are the

effects significant?

The most secure data center cabinet would have solid doors. Obviously, solid front doors would be

unacceptable from a cooling standpoint. Perforated doors are a compromise, providing a deterrent

to unauthorized access to the mounted equipment while allowing air to be drawn through the

cabinet. Higher percent open area perforation patterns require less metal, suggesting a reduction in

security. With these points in mind, Panduit set out to determine the effect that the door perforation

pattern has on preventing access to the IT equipment.

Airflow Performance

Industry Guidelines (ANSI/BICSI 002-2014)

ANSI/BICSI published a best practice that defines the minimum open area for data center cabinet

doors. This best practice defines a door’s “airflow capacity” (AFC

), not as the percent open area of

the perforation pattern, but as the ratio of the door’s total open area to the area between the

cabinet’s equipment mounting rails. Therefore, both the percent open area of the perforation

pattern and the total area of perforation on the door impact this value.

For a fixed area of perforation in a door, the perforation percent open area has a linear impact on

the AFC

value. Figure 1 shows this impact for the perforation areas of Panduit Net-Access™

cabinet doors of various widths compared with the minimum AFC

as specified by ANSI/BICSI.