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Giovanni Blengini January 14, 2021 11:29

Reference Area Choice
 
Hello
I need a suggestion
I am using Ansys Fluent to simulate wind acting on a floating solar panels platform (which is made of the floating basements, the metallic structures and the solar panels). I need to calculate the drag and lift coefficients and I need to set the adequate Reference Area and Reference length. My doubt is to use the frontal projected area or the top-down one or the sum of them, because the floats are similar to a rectangular shape and so in this case the projected frontal area would be the choice but the solar panels are low tilted and for them the best reference area would be the projected top-down area since they are similar to an airfoil.
The other problem is that since I am analyzing a solar field and not just the first row I am not sure whether these reference areas are fine.
Can you help me out?
thank you


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