Although computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been widely adopted to improve data center thermal management, the high computational demand limits its applications, such as multivariate optimal design and operation. Fast fluid dynamics (FFD), which has been applied for fast airflow simulation, shows great potential. However, few research applied FFD for optimal design and operation of data center thermal management. This research improves the FFD model for data centers and conducts a comprehensive evaluation and demonstration. First, the FFD model is improved by solving the advection and diffusion equations together using an upwind scheme instead of a semi-Lagrangian advection solver in the conventional FFD model. Second, new features for data centers are added, such as a pressure correction method to simulate plenum airflow and dynamic boundary conditions for IT racks. The new FFD model is first validated with two indoor environment cases and the results show that the new FFD model has slightly better overall prediction accuracy and faster speed compared to the conventional FFD model. It is also observed that both FFD models achieve acceptable accuracy, except for a few localized disparities with experimental data, which might be due to simplified handling of turbulence viscosity near the boundaries. Furthermore, validation with a real data center shows that the FFD model achieves a similar level of accuracy as CFD when compared to the experimental measurements with some level of uncertainties. It is then demonstrated for data center optimal design and operation, which saves 53.4–58.8% of annual energy while still meeting the thermal requirements. With a much faster speed and comparable accuracy compared to CFD, the FFD model parallelized on a graphics processing unit is promising for practical model-based data center early design and operation.

尽管已广泛采用计算流体动力学（CFD）来改善数据中心的热管理，但高计算需求限制了其应用，例如多元优化设计和操作。快速流体动力学（FFD）已被用于快速气流模拟，显示出巨大的潜力。但是，很少有研究将FFD用于数据中心热管理的最佳设计和操作。这项研究改进了数据中心的FFD模型，并进行了全面的评估和演示。首先，通过使用上风方案而不是传统FFD模型中的半拉格朗日对流求解器共同求解对流和扩散方程来改进FFD模型。其次，添加了数据中心的新功能，例如压力校正方法，用于模拟IT机架的通风气流和动态边界条件。新的FFD模型首先在两个室内环境下进行了验证，结果表明，与传统的FFD模型相比，新的FFD模型具有更好的总体预测精度和更快的速度。还观察到，两个FFD模型均达到可接受的精度，但与实验数据存在一些局部差异，这可能是由于简化了边界附近湍流粘度的处理。此外，与真实数据中心的验证表明，与具有一定程度不确定性的实验测量结果相比，FFD模型可实现与CFD相似的准确性。然后演示了它对于数据中心的最佳设计和操作，可节省53.4–58。每年可满足8％的能源需求。与CFD相比，它具有更快的速度和相当的精度，在图形处理单元上并行化的FFD模型对于基于模型的实际数据中心的早期设计和操作很有希望。