Photovoltaic (PV) devices are widely used renewable energy resources and have been increasingly manufactured by many firms and trademarks. This condition makes the selection of right product difficult and requires the development of a fast, accurate and easy setup that can be implemented to test available samples and select the cost effective, efficient, and reliable product for implementation. An automated test setup for PV panels using LabVIEW and several microcontroller-based embedded systems were designed, tested, and implemented. This PV testing system was fully automated, where the only human intervention required was the instalment of PV panel and set up of required testing conditions. The designed and implemented system was characterized by high performance standard with accuracy, precision, and resolution that is good enough to practically test any PV panel of the 12 V and 24 V ratings. In this paper, several simulations run and manually performed testing for PV panels were done to verify the automatically obtained results and those were found to be of good conformity (-3% difference with simulation results, 0.01% with manually taken results).
In this paper two axis sun tracking method is used to absorb maximum power from the sun's rays on the solar panel via calculating the sun’s altitude and azimuth angles, which describe the solar position on the Iraqi capital Baghdad for the hours 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00, 12:00, 15:00 and 17:00 per day. The angles were calculated in an average approach within one month, so certain values were determined for each month. The daily energy achieved was calculated for the solar tracking method compared with the fixed tracking method. Designed, modeled and simulated a control circuit consisting of reference position truth table, PI Controller and two servomotors that tracked the sun position to adjust the PV panel perpendicular
... Show MoreThe project has been described the design and construction of a reliable optical testing platform used for evaluate the reflectivity of metal surfaces treated with special paintings required for laser beam attenuation. The platform comprises an Nd-YAG laser system which has been designed and fabricated with specifications to be compatible with their corresponding in laser range finder transmitters used for various applications. The reflectivity of various attenuating paintings, at different detection angles, has been observed. Moreover, the variation of the reflected energy with painting type and metal type to be painted has been studied experimentally. Results illustrated the existence of a definite angle, at which the reflectivity was max
... Show MoreWeb testing is very important method for users and developers because it gives the ability to detect errors in applications and check their quality to perform services to users performance abilities, user interface, security and other different types of web testing that may occur in web application. This paper focuses on a major branch of the performance testing, which is called the load testing. Load testing depends on an important elements called request time and response time. From these elements, it can be decided if the performance time of a web application is good or not. In the experimental results, the load testing applied on the website (http://ihcoedu.uobaghdad.edu.iq) the main home page and all the science departments pages. In t
... Show MoreSolar photovoltaic (PV) has many environmental benefits and it is considered to be a practical alternative to traditional energy generation. The electrical conversion efficiency of such systems is inherently limited due to the relatively high thermal resistance of the PV components. An approach for intensifying electrical and thermal production of air-type photovoltaic thermal (PVT) systems via applying a combination of fins and surface zigzags was proposed in this paper. This research study aims to apply three performance enhancers: case B, including internal fins; case C, back surface zigzags; and case D, combinations of fins and surface zigzags; whereas the baseline smooth duct rep
Partial shading is one of the problems that affects the power production and the efficiency of photovoltaic module. A series of experimental work have been done of partial shading of monocrystalline PV module; 50W, Isc: 3.1A, Voc: 22V with 36 cells in series is achieved. Non-linear power output responses of the module are observed by applying various cases of partial shading (vertical and horizontal shading of solar cells in the module). Shading a single cell (corner cell) has the greatest impact on output energy. Horizontal shading or vertical shading reduced the power from 41W to 18W at constant solar radiation 1000W/m2 and steady state condition. Vertical blocking a column
... Show MoreA quantitative description of microstructure governs the characteristics of the material. Various heat and excellent treatments reveal micro-structures when the material is prepared. Depending on the microstructure, mechanical properties like hardness, ductility, strength, toughness, corrosion resistance, etc., also vary. Microstructures are characterized by morphological features like volume fraction of different phases, particle size, etc. Relative volume fractions of the phases must be known to correlate with the mechanical properties. In this work, using image processing techniques, an automated scheme was presented to calculate relative volume fractions of the phases, namely Ferrite, Martensite, and Bainite, present in the
... Show MoreIn this paper, the performance of a silicon cell with a Fresnel lens (FL) for building a solar photovoltaic concentrator system was evaluated; the solar concentrator is a Fresnel lens, which is a point concentrator made of polymethyl-methacrylate (PMMA) as a thin lens for the optics system.
As the radiation from the sun on the solar cell is concentrated to the levels of solar radiation of 750, 1300, 1930, 2600, 4250, 7250, and 10500) W/m2, the work was conducted at the midday in summer weather conditions, with ambient temperatures ranging 40-45 °C. The evaluation was performed in three cases; each case was conducted in succession. The performance of the cell was evaluated first wit
... Show MoreA design for a photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) assembly with a water-cooled heat sink was planned, constructed, and experimentally evaluated in the climatic conditions of the southern region of Iraq during the summertime. The water-cooled heat sink was applied to thermally manage the PV cells, in order to boost the electrical output of the PVT system. A set of temperature sensors was installed to monitor the water intake, exit, and cell temperatures. The climatic parameters including the wind velocity, atmospheric pressure, and solar irradiation were also monitored on a daily basis. The effects of solar irradiation on the average PV temperature, electrical power, and overall electrical-thermal efficiency were investigated. The findings i
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