Effect of Mechanical Loading Cycle Parameters on Crack Generation and Power Loss in PV Modules

This paper presents the study of the effect of mechanical loading cycle parameters on the crack generation and power loss for two different types of interconnect designs. Mechanical loading at a lower pressure has been found to cause cracks in the cell, whereas higher pressure causes cell cracks along with interconnect breakages. It has been found that there is saturation in the power loss and cell cracks after a certain number of cycles. Lower frequency (slow) DML requires more number of DML cycles to create same level of cracks as compared to high frequency (fast) DML. This helps us to identify an accelerated test protocol for dynamic mechanical loading.