Sensors and Actuators A 200 (2013) 7478

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Sensors and Actuators A: Physical
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ sna
Ultrasonic system for solar panel cleaning
Piotr Vasiljev, Sergejus Borodinas

, Regimantas Bareikis, Arunas Struckas

Department of Physics, Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences, The Laboratory of Ultrasonic Mechanisms, Vilnius, Lithuania
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 1 June 2012
Received in revised form
10 December 2012
Accepted 7 January 2013
Available online 14 January 2013
Keywords:
Solar panel
Ultrasonic system
Cavitation
a b s t r a c t
A lot of applications are required for surfaces or walls to remain free from airborne particle deposition. A
typical example is the deposition of dust on the solar panels in dusty zones. Pollen, bird droppings, dirt,
and dust can build up on solar panels.
The ultrasonic cleaning action is able to inltrate the smallest crevices and hard-to-reach surfaces,
penetrating areas normally inaccessible to other cleaning methods. During the rarefaction cycle the liquid
is torn apart. This creates a vacuum cavity within the liquid. These cavities will grow larger and smaller
as the compression waves are continued.
This paper proposes a possibility to create the ultrasonic cavity into liquid in motion with depth of
water from 0.1 to 1mm. We are created the ultrasonic cleaning system that performs an ultrasonic
cavity in thin water layer in motion (Fig. 1). The nite element method (FEM) was used to dene both
harmonical analysis and interaction between ultrasonic actuator and medium (air or/and water). The
prototype ultrasonic cleaning system was developed and some experimental results were dened.
The laser vibrometer used for measuring of mechanical uctuations on the piezoelectric actuators
surface and measuring results are presented.
2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Over time, solar panels will get covered with pollen, dust, grime,
dirt, and even bird droppings. Generally, 1015% decrease in solar
output when solar panels are dirty. Most of solar panels lifetime is
rated for a 30-year and more. For stable power generation need to
clean solar panels at least two times a year, when the rainy season
has passed even in desert.
A few methods can be used to cleaning heavily contaminated
items (repaired car parts, watch mechanisms, clothing cleaning
without washer etc.). Basically, cleaning effect appears in a small
volume of liquid which was affected by ultrasonic cavitations. To
create cavitations a reasonable amount of energy is needed.
Sometimes is not necessary to create cavitations in volume. For
at surface cleaning it is enough to create cavitations in a thin layer
of liquid placed on surface. A lot of scientic articles described
cavitations in liquid volume [1,2]. However, difcult to nd any
articles about create cavitations in thin liquid layer. Authors pre-
sented before this conception and make some experiments in this
eld [3].
The purpose of the modeling work presented here is to research
and to better understand the physics governing the ultrasonic

Corresponding author. Tel.: +370 8 6151 2934.

E-mail address: sergejus.borodinas@vpu.lt (S. Borodinas).
cleaningsystemusingcavitationeffect inuid, as well as toadvance
and to support the future research.
2. Simulation results
The structure and sizes of the proposed ultrasonic cleaning
system are shown in Fig. 1. The present system consist bidirec-
tional ultrasonic piezoelectric vibrator (1) and two long plates (2)
joined to the each side of vibrator. In this paper authors used
the plates length is 400mm with cross-section 8mm4mm,
PZT-8 piezoceramic, which has the following charge coefcients:
d
33
=225pC/N, d
31
=37pC/N. Thepiezoelectric ceramics arepoled
through the thickness. The electrodes are placed on both sides
of piezoceramics. The bidirectional ultrasonic vibrator and two
plates are made fromAluminumalloy (mass density =2.7g/cm
3
,
Young modulus E=70GPa, Poisson ratio o =0.33). Piezoelectric
rings and vibrators parts joined together using structural steel
piston (mass density =7.85g/cm
3
, Young modulus E=200GPa,
Poisson ratio o =0.33). All components are adhered together. The
solar panel in acoustic-piezoelectric interaction analysis presented
as acrylic plastic panel (mass density =1.16g/cm
3
, Young modu-
lus E=50.8GPa, Poisson ratio o =0.34). Gap between acrylic panel
and plates is about 1mm. The longitudinal vibrations of bidirec-
tional ultrasonic vibrator excite the transverse vibration of the
plates and thenproduced the acoustic pressure betweentwo oppo-
siteplates. Theintensiveacoustic pressurecreates cavitations inthe
thin liquid layer between.
0924-4247/$ see front matter 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sna.2013.01.009
P. Vasiljev et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 200 (2013) 7478 75
Fig. 1. Viewof the proposed ultrasonic cleaning system.
Numerical calculation contains harmonic response analysis
used for evaluating transverse vibration of the plates applying
external electrical signal to the piezoceramics and acoustic-
piezoelectric interaction analysis for calculating acoustic pressure
and sound distribution between two plates for creating maxi-
mum cavitations in the liquid layer. FEMmodeling of piezoelectric
actuators was carried out by employing FEM software COMSOL
4.2, that was used to create solid FE models of the ultrasonic
cleaning system, to make harmonic response analysis andacoustic-
piezoelectric interaction analysis.
Meshing of the ultrasonic cleaning systems model was made
using three-dimensional free tetrahedral elements using physics-
controlled mesh as shown in Fig. 2. This element is dened by eight
nodes having three degrees of freedomat eachnode: translations in
the nodal x, y, and z directions. Element has a 3Dmagnetic, thermal,
electric, piezoelectric and structural eld capability with limited
coupling between the elds. The element has eight nodes with up
to six degrees of freedom at each node. The proposed meshing of
entire geometry has 138,417 elements and has 617,602 degrees of
freedom.
Harmonic response analysis and acoustic-piezoelectric interac-
tion analysis was performed by using Pardiso solver with nested
dissection multithreaded preordering algorithm. The harmonic
response analysis was to nd out trajectories of measuring point
movement. Measuringpoint is locatedontheoneof theplate(Fig. 2,
black ellipse zone). Piezoelements were excited using AC signal
(30V) applied on the executing electrodes. A frequency range from
18kHz to 18.8kHz with a solution at 10Hz intervals was chosen
to give an adequate response curve of measuring point. The gain-
frequencies characteristics of measuring point movement with air
and water is shown in Fig. 3. It is signicant, that all damping
values arise frommaterials properties included ceramic. Isotropic
Fig. 2. Physics-controlled meshing using free tetrahedral elements. Black marked
dot shows point of measurement for subsequent gures.
structural loss factor for piston steel and for ceramic are 0.002 and
for aluminumis 0.001. Despite different mediums, basis onour pre-
vious calculationresults we canconclude, that excitationfrequency
of 18.5kHz should be used as operating frequency of the proposed
bidirectional vibrator both for air and water medium as shown in
Fig. 4. The sharp resonance peaks in numerical calculation means
the high quality factor of proposed resonance system. In spite of
small calculation step near resonance about 1Hz we are get the
similar sharp peaks.
The acoustic-piezoelectric interaction analysis was to nd out
the acoustic pressure distribution in medium (air and water) to
estimate the dynamic load inuence on the resonance frequency.
Piezoelements were excited using AC signal (400V) applied on the
executing electrodes. The acoustic pressure distribution depend-
ency in air is shown in Fig. 5 and its visualization in Fig. 6. Same
dependencies with water layer are shown in Figs. 7 and 8. The max-
imumacoustic pressure according to calculation results in air from
12 to 26kPa and in water up to 1400kPa as shown in Figs. 5 and 7
respectively.
3. Experiments and discussion
The gain-frequency characteristics of the proposed ultrasonic
cleaning systemwere measuredby impedance analyzer (HP4192A)
Fig. 3. Harmonic Response Analysis (air and water) for point of measurement shown in Fig. 2. Coordinate system sees Fig. 4. The excitation voltage is 30V was chosen for
numerical calculation.
76 P. Vasiljev et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 200 (2013) 7478
Fig. 4. Harmonic Response Analysis (18.5kHz).
and shown in Fig. 9, where frequency in kHz and impedance in
!. Despite to look like good graph shape on frequency around
20kHz we choose the frequency below (18.8kHz) how operating
resonance frequency, assuming our calculations results (Fig. 3).
Polytecs family of single-point laser vibrometer based on the
Doppler effect is indispensable tools for engineers looking to inves-
tigate natural dynamic responses is usedtodetermine the vibration
velocity and displacement at a specic point (Fig. 2, black ellipse
zone) onproposedultrasonic system. Theamplitude-frequencyand
phase characteristics measured by Doppler-laser vibrometer are
shown in Fig. 10 and circle diagram in Fig. 11. In Fig. 10 value
Amount is value measured directly by vibrometer and is pre-
sentedas a givenvoltage amplitudes. Vibrometer has a controllable
resolution of measurement, in our case is 1 ((m]s)]v). There-
fore, the actual speed conditionally is equal to voltage amplitudes:
v ((m]s)]v) and can be converted to the displacement using fol-
lowing equation: = ]2j . On the resonance frequency we get
the maximum displacement about 1.23m (Fig. 10) with exiting
voltage 30V comparing with numerical results 1.35m(Fig. 3).
Additional acoustic-interaction analysis of acoustic wave prop-
agation in thick water layer was done for comparing numerical
acoustic analysis and measurement results. Acoustic pressure
measurement was done by Brel&Kjr type 8103 hydrophone
Fig. 5. Acoustic pressure distribution dependencies on frequency18.5kHz in air.
Fig. 6. Acoustic-piezoelectric interaction analysis (18.5kHz, air).
Fig. 7. Acoustic pressure distribution dependencies on frequency 18.5kHz in water.
Fig. 8. Acoustic-piezoelectric interaction analysis (18.5kHz, water).
P. Vasiljev et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 200 (2013) 7478 77
Fig. 9. Measured impedance-frequency characteristic by impedance analyzer (min-
imumvalue of impedance aprox. 1.42k for 18.8kHz).
Fig. 10. Gain-frequency characteristics measured by Doppler-laser vibrometer. Y-
axes shows voltage amplitude of laser measurement for point of measurement
shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 11. Circle diagrammeasured by Doppler-laser vibrometer (Imaginary and Real
parts).
Fig. 12. Acoustic-piezoelectric interaction analysis for thick water layer (18.5kHz,
water).
Fig. 13. Acoustic pressure values measured by hydrophone.
and LAN-XI Data Acquisition Hardware Type 3660. In this case, we
use thick water layer, because the hydrophone dimension is too
large for thin water measurement. Acoustic-interaction analysis
for such water layer is shown in Fig. 12 and measurement results
underwater by hydrophone (Fig. 2, black ellipse zone, 50mmfrom
actuator) is shown in Fig. 13. The step value for acoustic pressure
Fig. 14. Ultrasonic cleaning systemand solar panel connecting example.
78 P. Vasiljev et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 200 (2013) 7478
Fig. 15. General viewof some part of solar panel: left articially polluted panel; right panel after ultrasonic cleaning with water during 15s with 32Wpowers.
measurement was chosen 10Hz. Despite such step, we are got a
sharp peaks values of acoustic pressure in water.
We are assume, that the numerical and measured resonance
frequency has a quite enough agreement. Moreover, acoustic-
interaction analysis and measurement results are very close (about
300kPa absolute pressure) and depend on measurement point
choice on the high nonlinearity line of acoustic pressure (Fig. 12).
The main goal of this paper is to present the newidea for clean-
inganysurfaces byultrasonic cavity. Solar panel is goodexamplefor
such application. The proposed ultrasonic cleaning systemoperat-
ing mode based on cavitation effect in thin water layer during rain
drop or by articial external water ow. However, in our model
the thin water layer is presented as uniformmedium. Based on our
experimental results such systemneeded a heavy rain for creating
a good cavitation in a thin layer.
Current ultrasonic cleaning systemwill be mounted stationary
not on the roof only, but will be integrated to any solar panels plant
in desert etc. One of solutions for connecting ultrasonic cleaning
systemto the solar panel is shown in Fig. 14. Number of actuators
and displacement between can be various. In this case, its pos-
sible to make a cleaning process fully automatically to keep the
maximumoutput power of solar panel in real-time using rain-drop
sensors.
Gap between the ultrasonic systemand the solar panel surface
depend on expected water layer during the rain or external water
ow. Inour experiments is from0.5to1.5mm. Inthicklayer is more
easy creating the bubbles cavitated ow, but needed strong enough
water ow. In thin water layer the sound pressure created possi-
bilities to water spraying and as expected not good cleaning effect
in far zone between plates. It is necessary to underline one more
aspect in current systems installation, namely ultrasonic clean-
ing systems plates and solar panel connecting points position. To
minimize the ultrasonic vibration damping factor authors joint the
active plates in few nodes by elastic material. Moreover, the elas-
tic material needed to evaluate the shifting motion of nodes by
resonance frequency change under thermal change.
Fig. 15 shows articially polluted panel fromthe left and panel
after ultrasonic cleaning with water from the right. We can use
proposed ultrasonic cleaning system during heavy rain, but this
event depends on climatic zone and season. Otherwise, we have a
good cleaning effect in zone between the plates with thick enough
water layer and in local zone surround the plates surface with thin
water layer.
4. Conclusion
The new method of ultrasonic cleaning for at surfaces is pre-
sented. The simple device for polluted surface cleaning is created
in our lab. Acoustic-piezoelectric interaction analysis both for air
and water was done. The optimal modes of vibration are dened
for all systems. The preliminary working conditions are denedand
approved it cleaning efciency. In our opinion, need to pay atten-
tion to acoustic interaction between plates joined to actuator and
dynamic load such as water and its interference. Furthermore, the
plates shape, water layer thickness and uniformity, air gap and
acoustical damping factor have a big inuence to the system ef-
ciency. The matter requires careful consideration.
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by the Lithuanian science council,
scientic group project Nr. MIP-11089.
References
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