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Data Centers Breathe Easier With Less Oxygen
PC World is reporting that some companies are looking at a new method of fire protection in their server closets, oxygen-deprivation systems.""Wood stops burning when the oxygen content falls to 17 percent and plastic cables between 16 to 17 percent, said Frank Eickhorn, product manager for fire detection at Wagner Alarm and Security Systems GmbH in Hanover, Germany. Wagner makes electric compressors that use a special membrane to remove some of the oxygen from the outside air, a system the company calls OxyReduct. The excess oxygen is exhausted, and the remaining nitrogen-rich air is pumped inside the data center."
Just imagine the new employee first day: ...
- Here is your cube
- Here is your chair
- Here is your scuba gear
SSH?
Badass Resumes
Its not exactly the same as being at 6000ft, its just similar from the perspective of how easily a human can breath. Higher altitudes have the same percentage of oxygen in the air, they just have lower air pressure, meaning less of all of its components. The lower altitude air will still be higher pressure, but with less oxygen. In terms of breathing, we just care about the partial pressure of oxygen, but thats not all that matters when it comes to whether something will burn.
Boss (on telephone to sysadmin in data centre): "I'm sorry Dave, but your recent conduct just hasn't been acceptable. I've decided to invoke the disciplinary procedure, and having discussed this with Mr. Flibble we've decided that this warrants 2 hours of W.O.O."
Sysadmin: "What's W.O.O.?"
Boss: "With
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Redesignate the open floor space as the management conference room. The oxygen will be sucked out in no time.
Not only can it prevent fires but it also help systems administrators train for the olympics.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
No, at 6000 feet there is still the same percentage of oxygen in the air, but at a lower pressure. This removes oxygen from the air. For a same volume of space it would have as much oxygen as a similar volume at 6000 feet.
Something will burn with the lower concentration of oxygen, but would be much less likely to ignite into open flame. It'd smolder slowly, and give you much more time to react to it.
It's a confusing analogy to explain a simple technical concept, because tech writers assume everybody is beneath their intelligence. Like putting too much air in a balloon.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Dave: Open the data centre door Hal
Hal: I'm afraid I can't do that Dave.
Nope, it's the percentage of oxygen and the pressure. Multiplying pressure by percentage for each gas gives you the "partial pressure" of that gas, and it's the gradient of partial pressures that determines rate of absorption. Well, to be precise, gas in your tissues (lung tissues, blood, etc.) has "tension", not pressure, so it's the difference between the partial pressure of the gas in what you breathe and the partial tension of the same gas in your tissues that determines absorption rate.
To live, you need a ppO2 within a certain range. IIRC, between about 0.05 (5% at 1 atm, or 10% at 0.5 atm, etc.) and 2.4 (pure O2 at 2.4 atm, or 50% at 4.8 atm, etc.). Below that range, oxygen doesn't diffuse into your tissues fast enough to supply their needs, above that range the oxygen begins to damage the tissues, in an effect known as oxygen toxicity.
SCUBA divers who go to great depths take bottles with very low percentages of oxygen, low enough that the gas would be marginal for survival at the surface. They do it because at, say, 20 atm (600 feet), normal air has a ppO2 of about 4.2, far, far above the safe level. A 3% O2 mix at 20 atm, however has a comfortable ppO2 of 0.6. Since the deep mixes aren't breathable in shallow water, such divers either carry multiple bottles of different gas mixtures (don't mix 'em up!) or else have pre-positioned staged for appropriate depths.
Going the other direction, pilots, astronauts and mountain climbers spend time in environments with very low pressures, low enough that the ppO2 is not survivable (or at least is not conducive to strenuous activity). So they breathe high concentrations of O2, usually from bottles of pure O2.
Cardiovascular efficiency also plays a major role here. Good cardiovascular health means both increased lung surface tissue for absorption and higher-volume blood flow for delivery of absorbed gases to the tissues which in turn absorb them from the blood (mostly according to the partial tension gradient with a tissue-specific absorption coefficient). So, people with good cardiovascular health can survive lower ppO2 levels.
Nitrogen has no effect on any of this, except as a gas to fill up the non-oxygen part of the mix, and, for divers a gas that will be absorbed under high pressures and released from tissues as pressures decrease. "The bends" is just nitrogen coming out of solution too fast and forming bubbles which block blood vessels.
CO2, on the other hand, is poisonous. I don't recall what the levels are, but above a certain ppCO2, you pass out and then die. CO2 must be removed from your breathing gas. This isn't an issue for open circuit SCUBA divers, whose exhalations float off to the surface, but it's important for rebreather divers and, obviously, for astronauts and others in sealed environments.
Bringing this back to the topic at hand, 17% O2 shouldn't be a problem for anyone of normal cardiovascular health unless the data center is located on a high mountain peak. Someone who has some lung injury or deficient circulation wouldn't want to work in such a data center, but most such people routinely use a nasal flow of pure O2 anyway so, again, it shouldn't be a problem.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
"I was *trying* to point out that you don't want to get too carried away by 'inerting' areas because there are consequences- while you may become sleepy and tired from CO poisoning, or disoriented, hot, and suffocating from CO2 poisoning, people will not experience warning symptoms with N2 poisoning- they'll simply keel over."
You will only get the "simply keel over" effect if oxygen levels are 0 (or close to it), like if you suck on a hose spouting pure nitrogen. The same thing will happen if you start breathing pure CO2. If you are in an environment where your body cannot get the oxygen it needs, you will simply die. If on the other hand you get a more gradual fall in oxygen levels (which would be the most common failure scenario here, as well as in most everyday situations where CO2 levels rise), you will feel side effects first. And anyways, as long as you have reasonable safety precautions, its still not going to rise to the level of "They'd better make damn sure NO ONE can defeat the safeties to get into that room", like you said in your first post. I mean if you are going to keep people out of any enclosure where there may be a drop in oxygen levels, you would also have to keep them out of houses and apartments that are heated with natural gas (which may result in a methane leak).
"Just simple information that your average person might not have known about..."
I'm pretty sure the average person knows you need oxygen to breathe.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.