Steady-State Simulation of a Ground-Mounted Solar Panel

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Abstract

Knowing the behavior of wind plays an important role when it can generate significant loads on structures. Although the most common are physical studies in wind tunnels, these are not cheap, so alternatives such as Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) have become a good option to determine such behavior more economically without sacrificing accuracy in the results. The objective of this work is to obtain a properly validated CFD model of a solar panel that allows to perform transient simulations. For this purpose, Computational Fluid Dynamics was used with ANSYS Fluent software, performing a stationary RANS analysis to serve as a preparatory model to later use more accurate but complex methods such as Large Eddy Simulation (LES) or similar. It was possible to obtain a mathematical model that responds correctly to the wind characteristics tested in a wind tunnel. In addition, the relevance of the pressure tap configuration used in the experimental study was verified, resulting in a suitable configuration to describe the pressures towards the center of the panel. Still, for the edge areas close to the wind incidence, a more adequate distribution is needed.