What do you call someone who doesn't believe in Father Christmas? A rebel without a Claus. Right, that's that out of the way. This week Facebook announced that it plans to build a 3x 300,000 ft^2 data centers in Lulea, Sweden. The Lulea business agency who helped attract Facebook to their city are dutifully excited as should Facebook be as they look set to capitalise on 10 … [Read more...]

'Rubbish In -> Rubbish Out' is a well accepted fact in the world of simulation. Regardless of the technical capabilities of your thermal simulation tool, the accuracy of prediction will always be tightly coupled to the accuracy of the input data. The most accurate thermal  IC package model is a so called 'detailed' model where all the internal construction is represented … [Read more...]

It would only have cost me an extra £170, a small extra compared to the cost of the rest of the build, but I decided against laying thermal insulation boards directly under the underfloor electric heating mats. Surely better to leak some of the heat down to heat the 100mm thick concrete screed which would maintain its heat through those cold winter weeks, giving thermal support … [Read more...]

3D simulation can provide a detailed prediction of temperature and heat flux values at 10s of 1000s of points in a 3D model, experimental methods are somewhat limited in terms of the wealth of data they are capable of providing. But hey, this isn't going to degrade into a pitched battle between simulators and experimentalists, nowadays good engineers (should) do both. "No one … [Read more...]

It's been over two years since the foundations went in for the extension we're building on our house. In that time I've come to respect and somewhat rely on glib phrases such as "Good things come to those who wait" and "Patience is a virtue". I told my better half we'd be moved in by Christmas, I didn't say which one though. In this blog series of the time I used FloVENT to … [Read more...]