Structural and motion system dynamic analysis of a two-axes solar tracker under wind action

Solar trackers are being increasingly used within the industry in order to improve the amount of power produced by photovoltaic systems. The design of these devices must pay special attention to wind action as the most relevant load seen by the generally flexible structure supporting the panels. However, standard building codes may not be particularly suitable for  this sort of very flexible, extremely wind-exposed and not very critical-from-a-safety-point-of-view structures. In this context, a sensible approach in order to estimate the aerodynamic loading acting on the system, has been carried out by a coupling of CFD and structural analyses performed with FLUENT and Abaqus/Standard, respectively. Some relevant aspects such as most critical scenario selection, influence of incoming turbulence in the dynamic response of the structure, and sizing of the motion system (two axes of rotation) in order to overcome the aerodynamic loading during positioning of the tracker, were addressed.