Environmental Systems Design, Inc. has been selected by Panduit to design a new data center thermal test lab at the company’s R&D facility in Tinley Park, IL.

Panduit and ESD will create a leading edge test lab to simulate multiple cooling and heat rejection scenarios to facilitate the development of advanced data center solutions.

“This is one of the first data center test labs of its kind,” notes Paul Schlattman, Vice President of the Mission Critical Facilities Group at ESD. “The lab will have moveable facility components such as an adjustable ceiling system to create a custom data center environment to match the end user existing conditions. Coupled with the capability to alter chilled water temperatures, test economizer technologies and other functions during the test mode, this will allow us to get a ‘real life’ model of the cooling configuration of the rack systems and the room.”

Jack Tison, chief technology officer at Panduit said, “This new test facility provides a broad based platform to evaluate next generation network architectures and their performance against alternative cooling strategies in high density environments.”

When completed in the Spring of 2011, the facility will begin modeling end user scenarios for prospective Panduit clients as well as Panduit Laboratories Research and Development products group.