Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology develops mobile fire-containment system that blocks heat and smoke spread
South Korean researchers have developed a technology that can isolate a burning server rack within one minute of a fire breaking out in a below-ground data center, preventing flames from spreading to surrounding equipment. The system automatically moves to the fire's location and deploys a fireproof cover, and is expected to reduce facility damage and service disruptions caused by large-scale data center fires.
The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology announced Wednesday that it had developed a "mobile fire-spread prevention compartment system" that automatically travels to the site of a fire in a below-ground data center and rapidly isolates the affected data rack.
As the spread of AI has elevated the importance of data centers, underground spaces such as abandoned mines have drawn attention as a new alternative for data center construction. While underground environments offer advantages such as stable temperatures and reduced exposure to external conditions, the dense concentration of servers, power equipment and cooling systems means a fire can quickly escalate into a major disaster.
Conventional data centers rely primarily on fixed fire compartments that divide interior spaces. Installing such compartments around every server rack, however, makes equipment replacement and scale-up difficult and reduces efficient use of space.
To address these limitations, a research team led by Yoo Yong-ho at the institute's Fire Safety Research Division developed a mobile system that forms a fire compartment only at the location where a fire breaks out.
The key components are a moving rail mounted on the ceiling and a foldable fireproof cover. Under normal conditions, the cover remains folded against the ceiling. When a fire is detected, the mobile unit travels to the affected data rack and the foldable cover unfolds downward by gravity, enclosing the burning server rack on all sides.
This prevents flames and intense heat from transferring directly to adjacent server racks while also stopping smoke from spreading to the surrounding area.
The system's performance was confirmed in an actual fire test. The research team simulated a below-ground data center environment at the institute's Fire Safety Research Division in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, and successfully isolated the target data rack within one minute of fire detection.
Notably, the surface temperature of the fireproof cover remained below 100 degrees Celsius throughout the test, and no smoke leakage to the outside was observed.
The institute plans to expand the technology's application beyond below-ground data centers in abandoned mines to new data centers, modular server rooms and high-density computing facilities. It also aims to improve prospects for commercialization through additional performance verification and further technical refinement.
Park Seon-gyu, president of the institute, said the fire test confirmed the technology's potential to contain fire spread in below-ground data center environments. "We will pursue additional verification and performance improvements across a range of environments to strengthen the fire safety response framework for data centers," he said.
nbgkoo@heraldcorp.com
