What you need to know about wind tunnel tests for solar tracker | Antaisolar.com

 The structural strength and stability design of solar tracker is mainly affected by its own weight, wind load, and snow load. In general, wind loads play a leading role in these three loads. The wind tunnel test can simulate the airflow in nature, use the scaled-down bracket as the test object, and process the data after the test. The data results will directly affect the design and optimization of solar trackers.

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Wind tunnel test and wind-vibration research on solar tracker are of vital importance. Antaisolar regards wind engineering research as the first priority to ensure product reliability, and cooperates with the international authoritative wind engineering consulting agency CPP to conduct a research on solar tracker. Strict wind tunnel testing and wind-vibration checking calculations have obtained detailed static and dynamic wind load data, and evaluated the buffeting and aerodynamic stability of trackers.

Solar single axis tracker is a flexible structure. The effect of wind on the flexible structure is not only the effect of static wind load, but also various wind-induced vibration effects such as flutter, vortex vibration, galloping, etc., and the dynamic structure amplification caused by wind vibration must be considered. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a comprehensive aeroelasticity test to investigate the aerodynamic stability of the solar tracker array under different influencing factors such as flow conditions, tracking angles, and arrangement interference. Based on the wind tunnel data, Antaisolar has fully optimized the design of structure t, such as increasing structural rigidity, improving structural damping ratio, optimizing aerodynamic layout, strengthening key node design, etc., so that the tracking support can cope with the harsh wind environment challenges from different projects.

For example, Antaisolar wind Engineering has researched and designed structural parts that can withstand the maximum local wind pressure, such as square piles and columns. The purlin is a key structural component that connects the solar module and mounting structure, Antaisolar redesigned the purlin based on wind tunnel data and size of solar modules, which is sufficient to meet the wind resistance design requirements in windy areas.

Meanwhile, through the full aeroelasticity test, Antaisolar can obtain the critical wind speed of the solar tracker array at different tracking angles, and investigate the aerodynamic stability performance of each row of brackets in the array. By selecting a reasonable high wind protection angle and optimizing the inner and outer arrangement of the bracket array, the influence of wind-induced vibration effects on the bracket structure can be minimized.