Numerical investigation of wind load acting on a ground fixed solar panel

The photovoltaic panels are one of the most important components to achieve the goal of decarbonization of the electricity and energy sectors. With the use of ANSYS Fluent, an advanced computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tool, the effects of tilt angles and wind directions on solar panels’ force coefficients (notably drag and lift) are investigated. After reading the report, readers will gain a better understanding of the aerodynamic behavior of a single and two separate ground fixed solar panels as well as a consecutive array by varying the tilt angles and wind directions, in addition to being able to set up the same case using ANSYS Fluent software. The simulations are carried out on several meshes and solved using a three-dimensional steady-state k − ω shear stress transport Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) turbulence model. The coefficients from three tilt angles (15°, 25°, and 45°) and four different wind directions (0°, 45°,135°, and 185°) will be compared to Jubayer’s experimental results (Jubayer, C. M. (2014)). The simulations were run using a Reynolds number of 2.13x106 for a stand-alone solar panel, and 2.96x106 for wind effects on consecutive arrays. Otherwise, this study compares steady-state and transient flow simulations, where the resulting coefficients were in a respectable correspondence with the experimental results.