Computational evaluation of wind loads on sun-tracking ground-mounted photovoltaic panel arrays

Computational fluid dynamics is employed to evaluate the mean wind loads on sun-tracking ground-mounted solar photovoltaic panel arrays. Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes simulations are performed using a finite volume-based numerical method. The mean turbulent flow around the panel is simulated by following two different approaches, by considering either the full three-dimensional model or the reduced model with periodic boundary conditions in the spanwise homogeneous direction. The periodic model is demonstrated to well reproduce the aerodynamics of the panel with a considerable reduction of the computational cost. The wind loading history due to the continuous rotation of the system is directly simulated by means of the dynamic meshing technique, which allows for a further savings of computational resources with respect to static calculations.