NREL / PVade

PVade is a fluid-structure interaction solver for studying wind loading and aerodynamic stability in solar-tracking PV arrays.

PVade

PVade is an open source fluid-structure interaction model which can be used to study wind loading and stability on solar-tracking PV arrays. PVade can be used as part of a larger modeling chain to provide stressor inputs to mechanical module models to study the physics of failure for degradation mechanisms such as cell cracking, weathering of cracked cells, and glass breakage. For more information, visit the PVade Documentation.

Getting Started

New users are encouraged to review the Getting Started guide which describes how to create the Conda environment and run the example simulations.

Developer Quick Start

1. To use this software, begin by creating a Conda environment using the provided environment.yaml file:

   conda env create -n my_env_name -f environment.yaml

   where my_env_name can be replaced with a short name for your Conda environment. When the environment finishes installing, activate it with:

   conda activate my_env_name

   from within your activate Conda environment, a simulation can be executed with:

   python main.py --command_line_arg value