Computer Room Flooring

For maximum sustainability and scalability, your company's computer room flooring should be carefully selected. The raised floor is a ubiquitous feature of data center computer rooms. The science and engineering of the computer room raised floor was fully developed in the 1960s and the basic design has remained relatively unchanged for over 40 years. Recently, the convergence of telecommunications and IT systems has reaffirmed the value of constructing computer rooms utilizing raised flooring.

Computer room raised flooring was originally developed and implemented as a system intended to provide the following functions:

• A cold air distributions system for cooling air
• Tracks, conduits, or supports for data cabling
• Conduits for power cabling
• A copper ground grid for grounding of equipment
• A location to run chilled water or other utility piping

The requirements of computer rooms have evolved and changed significantly, but raised floors still remain a key component. In fact, raised floors are one of the most practical choices for computer rooms as they are the most predictable way to guarantee proper air distribution.

Although there are new high-density applications being used without raised flooring, only 10 percent of data centers have this type of high-density application. Many computer rooms are likely to continue to use raised flooring for some time due to the large base of experience with raised floor design. Any alternatives to computer room raised flooring have been met with mixed success while the costs and problems associated with a raised computer room floor are negligible.

To discuss the design options for raised flooring in your facility, contact PTS' design experts for a custom evaluation.