Comparative Analysis of Effect of Wind Loads with Variation in Altitude and Angle of Inclination of Wind Direction on Solar Panels

Solar panels are used in wide range of applications like power generation, automobiles, electronic devices etc. They are trending devices which develop power from abundantly available solar energy. In spite of this advantage, they are affected by wind loads, which result in wind induced loading. Determining this is very essential because, the drag and lift forces applied on the solar panels due to the wind loads play a crucial role in the accomplishment of performance in the solar panels. In this work, an attempt was made to carry out a comparative analysis of the effect caused by the wind forces on different array sizes, altitudes, orientation of the solar panels at different wind speeds (5 m/s, 25 m/s) and at different inclination angles the wind (0°, 45°, 135° and 180°. The ultimate objective of this work was to analyze the effect caused by wind forces based on these combinations of the parameters. Different shapes of solar panels like rectangular and hexagonal shaped were analyzed for normal and optimized conditions. Moreover, wind load analysis was carried out for different altitudes like on the ground and on the roof top. The outcomes depict that the wind forces on front region of the conventional solar panels is higher when compared to the optimized solar panel.