Open Source Computational Flow Software
For the past several years I've managed a medium-sized class 1 data center and have been looking for an open source computational flow diagramming software.
At first I plotted inlet temperature and airflow by hand on massive pieces of graphing paper that simulated areas of the data center. This was a terrible idea for many reasons and eventually I moved on to using a local HVAC company that would take my numbers and plug them into some ridiculously expensive proprietary CFD software package. This would give me beautiful images that I could use for presentations and to track airflow and temperature issues inside the data center. However, there was a serious cost component to that.
Now, in "the future," I am using much more advanced techniques to do this tracking - using steam and infrared, digital billometers, etc - and I'd like to start using some of our light-use hardware to run these CFDs for me.
Has anyone had any experience with an open source CFD package? I've looked at openFOAM and openFlower, but I'd rather take it from someone who has been down this road before.
I am not sure if I expect much of a response, but I hope that someone out there has used some kind of OSS for thermal tracking in a datacom environment.
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