This tutorial contains GIF images.
If it fails to load, please visit the help center via a different web browser.
You can zoom this page with Ctrl+.

To start working on the civil analysis we need to open the Civil analysis menu. It can be found in the Tools sub-menu by clicking on Civil analysis.

The first civil analysis sub-menu is for performing slope analysis. To start, we need to select our PV area. This can be done by clicking on Select PV area, selecting our PV area outline, and pressing Space or Enter on the keyboard.

Once we have the area selected, we may now specify the slope limits we want to test our area with. Since our project is of a Single-Axis tracker design, we may define the limit for the slope angles in the North and South orientations. For our example, we will set this to 6% North and 12% South.

Having done so, click on Indicate and the software will color the frames that are not within the allowed limit. Frames exceeding the allowed North slope will be marked with red, while frames exceeding the allowed South slope will be marked with yellow.

Once we have the affected frames highlighted, we may click on Show details and see the exact slope angle or percentage for the frames in the area.

Should you want to switch between slope units, you may do so in the PVcase Layout Generation settings menu.

We can have a further look at the slope angles and how they affect the frames by creating a front-view projection of the frames and terrain. This can be done by using the Front-view tool.

We click on the drop-down menu next to the Cross-section button and choose the Front-view option. We will draw our front-view line through the middle of these trackers and continue the line until the end of these frames and click at our end-point. Furthermore, we then click on where we want our Front view section to be placed.

At a glance, we are able to identify that the frames were placed in accordance with the slopes of the terrain and the software highlights the deviations from the main axis. We are able to have a better look at the frames and how the slope values were derived.

We can do so by using the PLINE command and drawing a line from the edge of the frame that is parallel to the horizon. Furthermore, we then go to the Home tab in AutoCAD, open the drop-down menu of the Dimension tool and select Angular. Now, we click on the edge of the PV frame, then click on our newly-drawn horizontal line and finalize the dimensioning process by placing it, for example, here. This is essentially how the slope angle is measured by PVcase.

For project of a Fixed-tilt design, we may define the limit for the slope angles in the East-West directions. For our example, we will set this to 10 %.

Having done so, we click on Indicate and the software will color the frames that are not within our allowed limit. Frames exceeding the allowed slope will be colored.

Once we have the affected frames highlighted, we may click on Show details and see the exact slope angle or percentage for the frames in the area.

We can have a further look at the slopes and how they affect the frames by creating a front-view projection of the frames and terrain. This can be done by using the Front-view tool.

We click on the drop-down menu next to the Cross-section button and choose the Front-view option. We will draw our front-view line in front of the frames and continue the line until the end of these frames and click at our end-point. We then click on where we want our Front view section to be placed.

At a glance, we are able to identify that the frames were placed in accordance with the slopes of the terrain and the software highlights the deviations from the main axis. We are able to have a better look at the frames and how the slope values were derived.

We can do so by using the PLINE command and drawing a line from the edge of the frame that is parallel to the horizon. We then go to the Home tab in AutoCAD, open the drop-down menu of the Dimension tool and select Angular. Now, we click on the edge of the PV frame, then click on our newly-drawn horizontal line and finalize the dimensioning process by placing it, for example, here. This is essentially how the slope angle is measured by PVcase.