About the Survey — Data Center Exterior CFD Survey · Resolved Analytics

← Survey overview · About · Updated June 2026

About the survey

Why we did it, who's behind it, and how to reach us.

Why the survey exists

Hyperscale and AI data-center construction has driven a generation of mission-critical buildings into tighter co-location and higher rooftop equipment density than the design conventions of a decade ago anticipated. Exterior airflow questions — generator-yard plume entrainment into rooftop intakes, rooftop self-re-ingestion at low wind, cross-building wake effects on adjacent facilities — are increasingly relevant and increasingly difficult to evaluate from drawings alone. This survey applies a single standardized exterior CFD approach to a cohort of real mission-critical buildings, using public-source inputs only, to develop a descriptive picture of the patterns at work.

Resolved Analytics

Resolved Analytics is a Computational Fluid Dynamics consulting and software practice based in the United States. We provide CFD execution services across aerospace, energy, mission-critical facilities, industrial process, and consumer-product domains, and are an authorized Siemens STAR-CCM+ reseller. Mission-critical facility analysis — interior thermal management as well as the exterior side: generator-exhaust dispersion, rooftop plume recirculation, and cross-building thermal interaction — is a long-standing service line. The survey is an in-house research initiative, not a client engagement.

How results are shared

Representative per-facility results are published on this site as anonymized case studies — each describing a facility by type and configuration, without naming it. The full figure set, complete wind-case matrix, and a one-paragraph quantitative summary for a given facility are available on request to the owner, developer, or design team of record. We work as an independent check alongside the owner's engineering and design teams — not in competition with them.

Who it's for

The methodology, the anonymized findings overview, and the case studies are public — anyone is welcome to read them. Owners, developers, and operators carry a facility's exterior thermal risk, and they are the survey's primary audience: independent, portfolio-level scrutiny of the exterior physics, engaged early enough — around 30% design — to be acted on. If you own or are developing a facility and want to understand its exterior thermal exposure, or screen one still in design, get in touch.

Contact

Stewart Bible
Resolved Analytics
stewart@resolvedanalytics.com

About the author Stewart Bible, Principal, Resolved Analytics. Resolved Analytics is a Computational Fluid Dynamics consulting practice and authorized Siemens STAR-CCM+ reseller, with a long-standing service line in mission-critical facility exterior analysis. Contact: stewart@resolvedanalytics.com.

Disclosure. This is independent research conducted by Resolved Analytics without engagement, sponsorship, or input from any firm or building owner. All inputs are derived from cited public sources; no proprietary drawings, specifications, or operational data are used. Facilities are described by type and configuration only and are not identified. Results represent idealized exterior conditions and do not represent the actual as-built performance of any facility. No claims are made regarding life-safety, code compliance, or operational performance. This material is not engineering services rendered to any party.