Study of Drag Coefficients in Solar Panel Under Wind Loads

Abstract

Due to the geographical situation of Cuba the wind plays an important role in the design of the solar panels. The aim of the research is to evaluate the differences that appear in the support reactions of the panel, due to pressures acting, in correspondence with the implementation of the Cuban standard NC-285: 2003 but varying the pressure coefficient by using standards NBR 6123: 1988, CIRSOC 102, CN-285: 2003, Eurocode 1-4: 2005, ASCE 7-10 and AS-1170.2: 2011. These reactions are also calculat-ed from pressure coefficients obtained by wind tunnel testing on a scale model and coefficients proposed by another international work carried out on a wind tunnel on a similar solar panel. The main conclusions are that: among the standards, the use of the pressure coefficients proposed by the Eurocode 1- 4: 2005 leads to higher values of the support reactions and about the studies on wind tunnel testing, it can be concluded that the use of a total value of pressure coefficient it is not a good approximation to the actual behavior of the pressures on the panel.

Keywords

• carga de viento
• paneles solares
• túnel de viento