Mechanical stress

Mechanical stress is force from physical loads acting on a material, component or system, either compressive or tensile. Static or cyclic loads can cause cell breakage, broken interconnects, solder bond failures, glass breakage and other structural failures, and the cracks they start can keep growing over time. Exposure starts before operation: vibration and poor packaging in transport, then handling, stepping on modules or clamping them too tightly during installation, can crack cells or break glass. In operation, hail, wind, heavy snow, storms, impacts and defective mounting structures add loads. Coastal, alpine, hail-prone and storm-prone sites see more of these loads. Schottky bypass diodes are very sensitive to mechanical stress. Shocks or stress on the junction box during assembly, installation or operation can make them fail. A loose or detached junction box, or cables of the wrong length, puts stress on the contacts inside the box and can break them or start arcing. High winds can loosen cables and cause fretting in connectors. Moisture can then get in, causing corrosion, high resistance and failure. To reduce exposure, use proper strain relief and cable routing, protect wiring from mechanical damage, use correctly designed and torqued fasteners and clamps, and handle modules with care.

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• sentence 1: support check: partial - Passages say mechanical stress is applied from physical loads and mention compressive or tensile impact, but don't define it as a force that is either compressive or tensile.
• sentence 8: support check: partial - Strain relief, routing, wiring protection and fastener torque/design are supported, but nothing says to handle modules with care as a mitigation (only that handling can crack cells). -->