Towards thermal fatigue modeling of photovoltaic panels under the gulf region harsh atmospheric conditions

Abstract

An uncoupled thermal and thermo-mechanical modeling of a solar panel is presented. The thermal modeling itself has been previously developed to assess the nominal performance of photovoltaic panels under various service conditions. Within this computational tool, assessing temperatures makes it also possible to analyze the thermal stresses. To study and predict the long-term reliability of the solar panel materials, the thermal cycling due to varying atmospheric conditions is then of particular interest. We undertake such multi-physics approach by taking into account the thermal cycling at the front side of the photovoltaic device packaging, including the solar cells, their antireflective coating, a glass layer and an eventual encapsulating polymer. Even within a simplified modeled design and an elastic constitutive behavior, we can evaluate the threshold to fatigue for most of these materials.