Real-time thermomechanical modeling of PV cell fabrication via a PoD-trained RBF interpolation network

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.