Environmental Influence on Module Delamination Rate

Nicholas Bosco, Jared Tracy, Reinhold Dauskardt

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Scopus Citations

Abstract

This study begins to investigate the role of environmental factors, such as temperature and humidity, on the delamination kinetics of the ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA)/silicon-photovoltaic (Si-PV) cell interface. A fracture mechanics approach based on a single cantilever beam technique is employed to measure the delamination rate as a function of applied driving force. To glean insight into the mechanisms of bonding and degradation at this interface, and the effect of manufacturing variability and quality, we consider a high-quality pristine EVA and two EVAs formulated with reduced amounts of its adhesion promoter, silane. Results indicate that a bulk change in the viscoelastic properties of the EVA dominates the delamination kinetics at high driving forces and low humidity and the effect of a chemical reaction only becomes apparent at higher humidity and lower driving forces. These findings suggest that only interfacial phenomenon of susceptible, degraded material may have to be considered to adequately model PV module delamination failure.

Original languageAmerican English
Article number8574921
Pages (from-to)469-475
Number of pages7
JournalIEEE Journal of Photovoltaics
Volume9
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2019

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2011-2012 IEEE.

NREL Publication Number

  • NREL/JA-5K00-70830

Keywords

  • Accelerated aging
  • adhesive strength
  • delamination
  • materials reliability
  • photovoltaic cells

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