The relationship among CPU utilization, temperature, and thermal power for waste heat utilization

Highlights: • This work graphs a triad relationship among CPU utilization, temperature and power. • Using a custom-built cold plate, we were able capture CPU-generated high quality heat. • The work undertakes a radical approach using mineral oil to directly cool CPUs. • We found that it is possible to use CPU waste energy to power an absorption chiller. - Abstract: This work addresses significant datacenter issues of growth in numbers of computer servers and subsequent electricity expenditure by proposing, analyzing and testing a unique idea of recycling the highest quality waste heat generated by datacenter servers. The aim was to provide a renewable and sustainable energy source for use in cooling the datacenter. The work incorporates novel approaches in waste heat usage, graphing CPU temperature, power and utilization simultaneously, and a mineral oil experimental design and implementation. The work presented investigates and illustrates the quantity and quality of heat that can be captured from a variably tasked liquid-cooled microprocessor on a datacenter server blade. It undertakes a radical approach using mineral oil. The trials examine the feasibility of using the thermal energy from a CPU to drive a cooling process. Results indicate that 123 servers encapsulated in mineral oil can power a 10-ton chiller with a design point of 50.2 kW_th. Compared with water-cooling experiments, the mineral oil experiment mitigated the temperature drop between the heat source and discharge line by up to 81%. In addition, due to this reduction in temperature drop, the heat quality in the oil discharge line was up to 12.3 °C higher on average than for water-cooled experiments. Furthermore, mineral oil cooling holds the potential to eliminate the 50% cooling expenditure which initially motivated this project