Explore the vast range of titles available.

Silicon Carbide (SiC) abrasive machining solid particulates is one of the key engineering materials in the continuous development of wafer technology. Analysis of its packing behaviour is important to ensure the highest quality in the ingot cutting process to produce silicon PV wafers. One of the parameters that is monitored is the amount of fine particles present during the cutting operation and the subsequent separation technologies to recycle the material to reduce cost and allow environmental sustainability. This study presents results showing that with increasing circularity, less fines remain in the slurry suspension which is expressed as the percentage of total volume of particles in the slurry mixture. Furthermore, the work has gathered that there is a strong relationship between the % fines removed and the average diameter of the particles. An analysis of the relationship between the actual % fines remaining as a function of particle diameter reveals that the % fines remaining decreases as the particle diameter increases and this behavior correlates well with a power law equation. This agrees with a model of the fishhook effect during particle separation in a mini-hydrocyclone expressed as an equation raised to the fourth power.

The current concept of grinding or abrasive machining involves the formation and removal of segmented strips of material termed chips from the surface of the solid. A novel cutting mechanism is hereby presented in this research study that suggests that the generation of chips from the surface does not occur but only a shearing process that splits material creating added surface features and textures in the silicon surface. This arises from the unique set of factors of abrasive grit size, thrust force, polishing speed, and polishing time that lead to phase transformations in the surface layers of the silicon wafers. Statistical analysis of the factor effects yielded results that show the surface roughness values, Ra and Rz, increasing without any appreciable change in the thickness of the silicon wafers. This can be attributed to the proposed cutting mechanism indicating that only in-plane surface shearing occurred due to the change of the silicon crystal structure from exhibiting brittle behavior to that of ductile mode of deformation. Moreover, experimental quantities of the specific energy for surface machining of silicon was calculated with an overall mean of 50.5 GPa. This is about 33% less than the currently accepted value and can be considered further evidence that polymorphic transitions to a softer material occurred rendering the surface layers more susceptible to longitudinal cutting deformation and fracture. A model based on the inverted spherical cap or spherical bottom geometry for the individual abrasive particle is also proposed, verified by a finite element method analysis simulation, that can mathematically describe this particular micromachining process.