The blanking panels are necessary pieces that are installed in server racks to improve energy efficiency and promote equipment cooling. Blanking panels can be made with different materials such as steel or plastic and customized according to the colors of the racks where they are going to be installed. These parts are accessories inside the racks, but do we know all the advantages to using them?
There are different blank panels depending of their use, they can be horizontals of 1U server size to bridge the gaps betweeen servers or verticals of 42U, 46U or 48U rack sizes to bridge the gaps between racks in a aisle enclosure.
1U blanking panels are made to improve airflow within a rack, allowing cold air from the front of the racks to stay in front and the hot air from the equipment to stay back. Without these blanking panels, cold air could be drift to the rear and the hot air to the front, reducing energy efficiency of rack´s cooling system.
This way, that in addition to the aesthetic of seeing rack with spaces between servers to see totally closed rack, it also influences energy savings, helping air cooling systems to circulate airflow efficiently.
This panels can be made in different sizes to cove the different spaces between switches and servers, and their correct use it would be cover all the gaps.
In cold and hot aisle enclosures, the use of blanking panels is totally necessary to fill the gaps between racks, allowing that the enclosure be complete. The size of the panels it would be according to the spaces, it can be dimmable in high or with to close the space. These blanking panels in aisle enclosure can be installed in the ceiling too, to adapt the enclosure to all the size of the racks, adapting to multivendor centres and getting an uniforme enclosure. These system suppose an economy saving.