The Influence of PV Module Materials and Design on Solder Joint Thermal Fatigue Durability

Finite element model (FEM) simulations have been performed to elucidate the effect of flat plate photovoltaic (PV) module materials and design on PbSn eutectic solder joint thermal fatigue durability. The statistical method of Latin Hypercube sampling was employed to investigate the sensitivity of s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE journal of photovoltaics 2016-11, Vol.6 (6), p.1407-1412
Main Authors: Bosco, Nick, Silverman, Timothy J., Kurtz, Sarah
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acceleration factor
Computational modeling
Fatigue
Finite element analysis
MATERIALS SCIENCE
photovoltaic (PV) reliability
Photovoltaic systems
Silicon
SOLAR ENERGY
solder fatigue
Soldering
Studies
thermal cycling
Variables
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Summary:Finite element model (FEM) simulations have been performed to elucidate the effect of flat plate photovoltaic (PV) module materials and design on PbSn eutectic solder joint thermal fatigue durability. The statistical method of Latin Hypercube sampling was employed to investigate the sensitivity of simulated damage to each input variable. Variables of laminate material properties and their thicknesses were investigated. Using analysis of variance, we determined that the rate of solder fatigue was most sensitive to solder layer thickness, with copper ribbon and silicon thickness being the next two most sensitive variables. By simulating both accelerated thermal cycles (ATCs) and PV cell temperature histories through two characteristic days of service, we determined that the acceleration factor between the ATC and outdoor service was independent of the variables sampled in this study. This result implies that an ATC test will represent a similar time of outdoor exposure for a wide range of module designs. This is an encouraging result for the standard ATC that must be universally applied across all modules.
ISSN:2156-3381
2156-3403
DOI:10.1109/JPHOTOV.2016.2598255