Specifications

Chapter 5. Planning 149
5.7 Cooling
The flow of air within the Enterprise Chassis follows a front to back cooling path;
cool air is drawn in at the front of the chassis and warm air is exhausted to
the rear.
There are two cooling zones for the nodes: a left zone and a right zone.
The cooling is scaled up as required, based upon which node bays are
populated. The number of cooling fans required for a given number of nodes is
described further in this section.
Air is drawn in both through the front node bays and the front airflow inlet
apertures, at the top and bottom of the chassis.
When a node is not inserted in a bay, an airflow damper closes in the midplane,
meaning that absolutely no air is drawn in through an unpopulated bay. When a
node is inserted into a bay, the damper is opened mechanically by insertion of
the node, allowing for cooling of the node in that bay.
5.7.1 IBM Flex System Enterprise Chassis fan population
The fans are populated dependent on nodes installed. To support the base
configuration and up to four half-wide nodes (or two full-wide nodes), a chassis
ships with four 80 mm fans and two 40 mm fans preinstalled.