Cooling Header for Supercomputer at The National Petascale Computing Facility

UIUC Petascale Supercomputer Cooling Header Walkthrough

OWNER: The National Petascale Computing Facility  

CLIENT: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)

LOCATION: 1725 S. Oak St. Champaign, IL

CONSTRUCTION START: April 2021 

COMPLETION: December 2021

Autumn Construction Services was tasked through the job-order contracting (JOC) program of UIUC to incorporate additional cooling headers for a new supercomputer assembly at The National Petascale Computing Facility. This state-of-the-art 88,000-square-foot facility accommodates computing, networking, and data systems essential for researchers at UIUC and nationwide.

Given the strict requirements of the computer facility, no smoke, sparks, flames, or dust could be permitted within the building's confines. Another project complication was due to the piping being situated beneath the computer room floor, and our team needed to avoid disrupting any floor tile supports.

To ensure precise installation of the piping system, our team conducted thorough scans of the entire subfloor before installing the new chilled water piping. Autumn successfully installed chilled water piping beneath the computing building floor to aid in cooling the new Petascale supercomputer on campus. Through meticulous preconstruction planning and the use of BIM technology, we were able to fabricate all necessary components to exact dimensions, facilitating installation without the need for welding, brazing, or cutting inside the room. This approach ensured that the installation was executed flawlessly without requiring any rework.