Open Access

ARTICLE

Real-Time Thermomechanical Modeling of PV Cell Fabrication via a POD-Trained RBF Interpolation Network

Arka Das¹, Anthony Khoury¹, Eduardo Divo^{1, *}, Victor Huayamave¹, Andres Ceballos², Ron Eaglin², Alain Kassab³, Adam Payne⁴, Vijay Yelundur⁴, Hubert Seigneur⁵

1 Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 1 Aerospace Blvd., Daytona Beach, FL 32114, USA.
2 Central Technological Corporation, Longwood, FL 32779, USA.
3 University of Central Florida, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, 4000 Central Florida Blvd., Orlando, FL 32816, USA.
4 Suniva Inc., 5765 Peachtree Industrial Blvd., Norcross, GA 30092, USA.
5 Florida Solar Energy Center, University of Central Florida, Cocoa Beach, FL 32922, USA.

* Corresponding Author: Eduardo Divo. Email: .

Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2020, 122(3), 757-777. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmes.2020.08164

Received 01 August 2019; Accepted 25 December 2019; Issue published 01 March 2020

Abstract

This paper presents a numerical reduced order model framework to simulate the physics of the thermomechanical processes that occur during c-Si photovoltaic (PV) cell fabrication. A response surface based on a radial basis function (RBF) interpolation network trained by a Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) of the solution fields is developed for fast and accurate approximations of thermal loading conditions on PV cells during the fabrication processes. The outcome is a stand-alone computational tool that provides, in real time, the quantitative and qualitative thermomechanical response as a function of user-controlled input parameters for fabrication processes with the precision of 3D finite element analysis (FEA). This tool provides an efficient and effective avenue for design and optimization as well as for failure prediction of PV cells.

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