Liquid cooled rack information handling system having leak management system

1. A Rack Information Handling System (RIHS) comprising:

a rack having chassis-receiving bays;

a liquid cooling subsystem that provides cooling liquid to one or more liquid cooled (LC) nodes received in the chassis-receiving bays;

one or more leak collection structures positioned to receive cooling liquid that leaks from the liquid cooling subsystem;

one or more liquid sensors that detects a presence of leaked cooling liquid in any of the one or more leak collection structures, wherein the one or more liquid sensors include a node-level liquid sensor that detects leaks within a respective LC node; and

a leak detection subsystem communicatively coupled to the one or more liquid sensors and which responds to a detected presence of liquid by providing a leak indication.

2. The RIHS of claim 1 , further comprising:

at least one shutoff valve to interrupt the supply flow of cooling liquid to at least one of (i) a selected LC node and (ii) upstream components of the liquid cooling system; and

a liquid infrastructure manager controller (LIMC) in communication with the one or more liquid sensors and the at least one shutoff valve, and which triggers a closing of one or more of the at least one shutoff valve in response to a corresponding liquid sensor detecting a liquid leak in the RIHS.

3. The RIHS of claim 2 , further comprising:

a block chassis that receives more than one LC node, wherein the one or more LC nodes includes more than one LC node within the block chassis; and

the liquid cooling subsystem comprising:

a node-level shutoff valve associated with each LC node to interrupt a supply flow of cooling liquid to a respective LC node;

a block-level shutoff valve associated with the block chassis and which is in fluid communication with each node-level shutoff valve to interrupt an upstream supply flow of cooling liquid to an entire block of more than one LC node; and

a rack-level shutoff valve to interrupt a supply flow of cooling liquid to the RIHS.

4. The RIHS of claim 2 , wherein the one or more liquid sensors further comprises:

a block-level liquid sensor associated with the block and which detects liquid flow within a block chassis that receives one or more LC nodes; and

wherein the LIMC is in communication with the node-level liquid sensors and the block-level liquid sensors to (i) associate a leak with a containment solution specific to one of a selected LC node, a selected block, and the RIHS and (ii) trigger closure of one or more shutoff valves to effect the containment solution in response to the detected presence of a leak.

5. The RIHS of claim 4 , wherein the LIMC:

identifies which levels of leak detection sensors detected the leak from among a node-level sensor, one or more block-level sensors, and the rack-level sensor;

in response to determining which levels of leak detection sensors detected the leak, triggers shutoff of at least a lowest level shutoff valve that supplies cooling liquid to an area monitored by the identified level of leak detection sensors;

determines whether the containment solution applied was effective by determining whether an additional leak detection signal is subsequently received at a higher level sensor; and

in response to determining the containment solution was not effective, triggers the rack-level shutoff valve to close.

6. The RIHS of claim 1 , wherein:

the liquid cooling subsystem has a liquid rail formed by more than one rack interconnections vertically aligned in a rear section of the rack that are connected by modular rail conduits for node-to-node fluid transfer; and

the RIHS further comprising:

a pipe cover received over at least one modular rail conduit and comprising a liquid cavity formed in a bottom portion of the pipe cover to capture liquid leaks from at least one liquid rack interconnection;

a liquid sensor to detect presence of liquid in the liquid cavity of the pipe cover; and

a leak detection subsystem communicatively coupled to the liquid sensor to respond to the detected presence of liquid within the liquid cavity by providing a leak indication.

7. The RIHS of claim 6 , further comprising:

a light indicator that is utilized to provide the leak indication; and

control modules within the leak detection subsystem that causes the light indicator to illuminate in response to a locally-detected leak.

8. The RIHS of claim 6 , wherein:

the liquid cavity comprises a first spillover port formed in a contoured bottom panel; and

the pipe cover comprises a contoured top panel having a second spillover port vertically aligned with the first spillover port to receive liquid from another pipe cover positioned vertically above a top of the pipe cover.

9. The RIHS of claim 8 , wherein the pipe cover and the other pipe cover have top and bottom panels with corresponding shapes contoured to slidingly engage.

10. The RIHS of claim 6 , wherein:

the pipe cover is one of more than one pipe cover vertically aligned in a stack, each selected pipe cover having an upper spillover port to receive spillover from any pipe cover immediately above and having a lower spillover port to direct overflow to any pipe cover immediately below; and

the leak detection system:

determines a first time when a leak is detected in a selected pipe cover;

determines a second time when a leak is detected in a pipe cover immediately below the selected pipe cover;

determines an amount of time that elapsed between the first time and the second time;

communicates to a rack infrastructure controller a first severity level in response to the amount of time being greater than a threshold value; and

communicates to the rack infrastructure controller a second severity level in response to the amount of time being equal to or less than the threshold value.

11. The RIHS of claim 5 , wherein:

the liquid cooling subsystem comprises an electrically-actuated control valve that directs cooling liquid to the liquid rail; and

the leak detection system:

determines an amount of time between a leak being detected in the other pipe cover and the pipe cover; and

triggers the electrically-actuated control valve to close in response to the amount of time being equal to or less than a threshold value.

12. The RIHS of claim 11 , wherein the leak detection system triggers an emergency power off (EPO) of the RIHS in response to the amount of time being less than or equal to another threshold value that is less than the threshold value.

13. The RIHS of claim 6 , further comprising a liquid manifold having one or more liquid interconnections with tab receiving apertures formed in a rear facing surface, wherein the pipe cover comprises forward extending resilient tabs releasably engageable to the tab receiving apertures.

14. A method of leak management for a Rack Information Handling System (RIHS), the method comprising:

detecting, by one or more liquid sensors, a presence of leaked cooling liquid in one or more leak collection structures positioned to receive cooling liquid that leaks from a liquid cooling subsystem that provides cooling liquid to one or more liquid cooled (LC) nodes received in chassis-receiving bays of a rack, the detecting by one or more liquid sensors comprising detecting a presence of leaks within an LC node by a respective node-level liquid sensor associated with each LC node; and

responding, by a leak detection subsystem communicatively coupled to the one or more liquid sensors, to a detected presence of liquid by providing a leak indication.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising:

triggering a closing of one or more of at least one shutoff valve in response to a corresponding liquid sensor detecting a liquid leak in the RIHS to interrupt the supply flow of cooling liquid to at least one of (i) a selected LC node and (ii) upstream components of the liquid cooling system.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein:

the one or more LC nodes includes more than one LC node within a block chassis; and

the at least one shutoff valve of the liquid cooling subsystem comprises:

a node-level shutoff valve associated with each LC node to interrupt a supply flow of cooling liquid to a respective LC node;

a block-level shutoff valve associated with the block chassis and which is in fluid communication with each node-level shutoff valve to interrupt an upstream supply flow of cooling liquid to an entire block of more than one LC node; and

a rack-level shutoff valve to interrupt a supply flow of cooling liquid to the RIHS.

17. The method of claim 15 , wherein detecting, by one or more liquid sensors, the presence of leaked cooling liquid comprises:

detecting liquid flow within the block chassis by a block-level liquid sensor associated with the block chassis.

18. The method of claim 17 , further comprising:

identifying which levels of leak detection sensors detected the leak from among a node-level sensor, one or more block-level sensors, and a rack-level sensor;

in response to determining which levels of leak detection sensors detected the leak, triggering shutoff of at least a lowest level shutoff valve that supplies cooling liquid to an area monitored by the identified level of leak detection sensors;

determining whether the containment solution applied was effective by determining whether an additional leak detection signal is subsequently received at a higher level sensor; and

in response to determining the containment solution was not effective, triggering the rack-level shutoff valve to close.

19. The method of claim 14 , further comprising:

detecting, by the one or more liquid sensors, the presence of leaked cooling liquid in the one or more leak collection structures comprising a liquid cavity formed in a bottom portion of a pipe cover that is received over at least one modular rail conduit of the liquid cooling subsystem and that captures liquid leaks from at least one liquid rack interconnection.

20. The method of claim 19 , wherein providing the leak indication comprises causing a light indicator to illuminate in response to a locally-detected leak.

21. The method of claim 19 , wherein providing the leak indication comprises:

determining an amount of time between a leak being detected in the pipe cover and another pipe cover that receives a spillover of the leaked liquid from the pipe cover;

communicating to a rack infrastructure controller a first severity level in response to the amount of time being greater than a threshold value; and

communicating to the rack infrastructure controller a second severity level in response to the amount of time being equal to or less than the threshold value.

22. The method of claim 21 , further comprising triggering an electrically-actuated control valve to shutoff the liquid rail in response to the amount of time being equal to or less than a threshold value.

23. The method of claim 21 , further comprising triggering an emergency power off (EPO) of the RIHS in response to the amount of time being less than or equal to another threshold value that is less than the threshold value.