Posted on March 11, 2019
When designing and constructing cooling or fire protection systems in data centers, mechanical grooved Installation-Ready™ technology offers easy maintenance, adaptability and reliability, while decreasing installation time and controlling costs.
Below we look at the emerging and continuing data center construction trends for 2019, such as prefabrication, Building Information Modelling (BIM)-enabled tech and ‘density diversity,’ and how Victaulic solutions allow users to proactively react to trends.
Data Center Construction Trends:
1. Utilizing Prefabrication in Data Center Construction
Prefabrication solutions are gaining popularity in data center construction. The process has been around for years in various forms – prefab modules (PFM), assemblies, and large-scale kits – and has continued to grow in popularity because it takes away a lot of uncertainties in the construction industry. These include helping to minimize construction time, job site waste, and onsite risks. In fact, PFM pump rooms that use grooved coupling technology are becoming so popular in data centers that several pump manufacturers are now offering pumps with grooved connections.
But fabrication with traditional methods, like flanging, continues to have its challenges. Flanges and flexible connectors add excessive costs, alignment challenges and maintenance issues. Victaulic technologies enable contractors to reap the full benefits of prefabrication. Eliminating flanges and flexible connectors offer a significant improvement in construction and maintenance costs, and alignment and adaptability.
2. Designing Data Centers with BIM-enabled Technology
Working in tandem with prefabrication is the trend of employing Virtual Design & Construction (VDC) and BIM-enabled technologies. BIM-enabled tools, including Autodesk Revit, help team members to work together efficiently by using collaborative 3D models that allow everyone to visualize designs at the same time.
Growing from an emerging concept to an industry-standard, BIM and virtual design technologies easily integrate with Victaulic technologies. They enhance the delivery and construction of complex data center projects with minimal cost and help mitigate risks. By combining this technology with grooved couplings, which can be simply and precisely re-aligned and re-adjusted, on-site installation time is also reduced significantly.
3. Data Center Construction Reacts to Density Diversity
‘Density diversity’ is a real and growing issue for the data center industry, mainly as it requires increased use of liquid. The emergence of “high density” applications among businesses is, in turn, driving a need for adaptable cooling solutions: a growing trend that can support both air and liquid cooling systems.
The increasing business use of artificial intelligence and other machine learning applications is, in turn, expanding rack density to over 40KW per rack (most are under 10KW). To help to address this challenge, we are working with a wide variety of liquid solution vendors to deliver high-density liquid cooling solutions in new or operating data centers.
React to Data Center Construction Trends with Victaulic
Converting to mechanical pipe joining instead of traditional joining methods, like flanging and welding, will help to drive these industry trends due to its adaptability, modularity and speed of installation.
In the data center industry specifically, we also predict that demand will remain resilient as this sector continues to grow. In 2019, we aim to coordinate with data center commissioning teams, to better understand how our grooved solutions can best work for them.
Talking to our customers and attending industry events are key for us to collect industry insight and develop innovative solutions. As such, we’re excited to be attending the Data Centre World event on the 12th-13th March at ExCel London. We will be demonstrating some of our key data center solutions and will be on hand to discuss any questions you might have. We hope to see you there!
