A combined grain boundary segregation and precipitation model is presented. The model predicts the formation of precipitate free zone (PFZ) at the grain boundaries in aluminium alloys, accounting for the quench rate after solution heat treatment and the following heat treatment during which hardenin...

Small-scale solidification simulations were carried out in order to study the effect of the grain orientation and cooling rate on the stresses in mono- and bi-crystals. First, a 2D-axisymetric heat-transfer model of the global furnace is established to provide input to the sub-model. The sub-model t...

Solar silicon wafers are mainly produced through multiwire sawing. The sawing process induces micro cracks on the wafer surface, which are responsible for brittle fracture. Hence, it is important to scrutinize the crack geometries most commonly generated in silicon wafer sawing or handling process a...

Surface adhesion between wet wafers poses great challenges for silicon wafer handling. It has been shown that both the shear and normal handling forces of the solar silicon wafers can be dramatically reduced by using the ultrasound energy. Approximately 20 and 5 times reduction in horizontal and ver...

Vibration is one of the most common loading modes during handling and transport of solar silicon wafers and has a great influence on the breakage rate. In order to control the breakage rate during handling and facilitate the optimization of the processing steps, it is important to understand the fac...

The purpose of this work is to check the potential of innovative processes for the Si wafers production toward the solar cell industry. Studies have been focused on a comparative analysis of mechanical properties of such wafers, since: (i) reduced wafer strength leads to a high breakage rate during ...