A layer-wise theory for laminated glass and photovoltaic panels

Abstract Laminated plates with glass skin layers and a core layer from soft polymers are widely used in the civil engineering. Photovoltaic panels currently available on the market are composed from stiff front and back layers and a solar cell layer embedded in a soft polymeric encapsulant. In this paper a layer-wise theory for the structural analysis of glass and photovoltaic laminates is developed. Starting from governing equations for individual layers, kinematical constraints and appropriate interaction forces, a twelfth order system of partial differential equations is derived. The primary variables in the theory include the Airy stress function, the deflection function and the vector of relative in-plane displacements of skin layers. For symmetric laminates a system of uncoupled differential equations with respect to scalar potentials is presented. Three of them correspond to the first order shear deformation plate. The new additional second order differential equation provides a correction function according to the layer-wise theory. Closed form analytical solutions for a plate strip are derived to illustrate the essential influence of this correction for laminates with soft core layer. The importance of additional boundary conditions is shown for examples of free and framed plate edges.