WIND LOAD EFFECTS ON PHOTOVOLTAIC MODULES

J.M. PODESTÁ; J.L. MROGINSKI; H.G. CASTRO; A.R. WITTWER

Foz do Iguaçu, Paraná, Brazil

Conferencia; XLIII Ibero-Latin American Congress on Computational Methods in Engineering (CILAMCE 2022); 2022

ABMEC

Wind loads are a major concern regarding steel structures, which is the case of the photovoltaic modules. These devices have been studied using different approaches in order to determine their aerodynamic characteristics. Nevertheless, the argentine regulation in this aspect (CIRSOC 102 Ed. 2005) does not contribute with detailed specifications for unconventional structures. In order to provide more data about the influence of the photovoltaic module aerodynamics on its constitutive structural elements, an interdisciplinary approach is presented to define the aerodynamic properties and the mechanical states of a specific model of the photovoltaic module. In the first place, the pressure coefficients obtained experimentally in the Wind Tunnel by other authors were used to determine the most hostile wind loads applied to the studied panel. Secondly, numerical modeling of the type structure in the physical and geometric nonlinear field was carried out, thus obtaining the natural modes of vibration and the structural components with critical solicitation.