Need Help Finding the Max Wind Speed a Solar Dish has to Withstand

Not sure what India has as far as a weather recording body. We have here in the States agency's that record daily winds and other weather from around the areas. You can go to these sites and find info your looking for here. But, in India I am at a loss to help you as most of us here would be. Check with your governmental agency's for this information. They should be-able to help you.

Numerous web sites can provide links to historic weather data, and much of it is linked to large airports with weather stations. ASHREA has published tables of weather stations internationally. As Capt Moosie suggests, local code or building officials might have regulations or standards requiring wind design loads as part of the structural building design.

http://www.ask.com/web?q=what++design+wind+speeds+in+India&qsrc=0&o=0&l=dir

This site has numerous links for India wind speeds, one of which refers to IS 875 India Standard Code.

Learn how to use Google, or Ask.Com to dig up info from the internet. It is amazing what these search engines can uncover.

I don't know what you have in the way of national structural engineering standards in India when comes to determining the Maximum wind speed, and hence computation of wind force. Conditions along the coastline will be entirely different from those in the interior of the country.

Here in the USA we use the American Society of Civil Engineers publication ASCE-07. You can find older editions online for download (if you look hard enough using the Google search engine) as an ebook. The latest edition is not free and is quite costly.

You can follow the methodology found in ASCE-07 on how to calculate the forces. Unfortunately, that publication only contains the Basic Wind Velocity Maps for the United states and will not be any help for you. You must obtain those types of wind maps from your own country if they are even available at all.

www.asce.org

Design the support structure and the dish itself under several "what IF" positions and conditions since it will not be a stationary object that could produce the maximum wind force magnitudes. And don't forget to include in your structural calculations wind uplift forces.

The query is that what is the max. wind speed the solar dish has to withstand against??

For telecommunications structures it is 100km/h operational (ie acceptable deflection) and 160km/h survival.

Talk to your local professional engineers/fabricators.

You're not reinventing the wheel by any chance?

How can that be? It should differ from region to region according to wind velocity data.

Sure thing. If you will never have a breeze stronger than a sparrow's fart once per year then you can build it to withstand just that.

To answer the OP's question literally, then the answer is "it should withstand the max wind speed in the environment it is operating in" and that info is available from the local met department.

BUT, that is not how structures are rated. Trust me I know these things. It's my rice bowl.

First you give doubtful information, then you fail to answer an intervening question, and then you ask us to trust you.

I don't think so, unless you do better than that.

Fair cop on the trust thing Tornado.

Doubtful? Not really. If I didn't seem to answer your question then sorry.

Two parameters here. Operating and survival windspeeds.

Operating windspeed limitation governs the acceptable deflection and can be diminished if the statistical ambient windspeeds are lower. ie check with the met bureau. Survival is an integrity issue. You want the thing to remain where it is and work again after a severe loading episode.

The OP eventually did his own research, so mission accomplished there. Interesting to note that the cited commercially available structure with a lower operating windspeed spec still had a survival windspeed of 100MPH.

Telecom structures, solar concentrators, billboards or carports all need to be able to hang in there when it gets breezy and not end up in your neighbour's yard.

Survival is the dominating spec.

I hope the OP will share his wind load testing experiences once he has built his concentrator. I'm seeing a dish on the roof of a car hurtling down a lonely road in rural India......

This is a solar collector, not a communications dish. Importance factor based on the end user will probably be different, therefore the safety factors assigned to the design may possibly be different. And design wind or seismic design loads will have some variation based on the local.

This is not my area of "expertise", but I do know how the find the local code reference and local meteorological data to make an informed suggestion. I do not know you well enough to know if I can "trust you". Nothing personal, I just need to verify why you make the specific recommendation you have made.

Thanks a lot for all for your valuable suggestions..

I have gone through the wind speed data of the country and also some technical spec sheets of dish suppliers. They are giving two parameters one operating and the other survival wind speed.

Like one dish named ARUN Solar Dish they have given

operating wind speed : 36kmph

survival wind speed : 169kmph

It gives us a way to start with..

Thanks again all for the support :)