Host: The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
Name : [in Japanese]
Date : September 03, 2017 - September 06, 2017
The purpose of this study is to develop a new process for making a silicon plate thinner than 100μm. A silicon plate thinner than 100μm will became flexible and be utilized for flexible solar panels. If we can produce a silicon plate thinner than 100μm, solar panels could cover any surfaces. It creates new additional value of the panel products. In this study, we did the experiment using a substitute material (low melting point alloy). In our experiment, the molten alloy was pulled out from the narrow slit of the crucible and was solidified by ambient air cooling. Through this method, we can obtain the thin metal plate. We did also CFD simulation focusing on its solidification process. From the experiments, we obtained a partially thin plate with constant plate width in our experiment. Its thickness at thinnest point of the metal plate was 90μm. We need to make a more uniformly thin metal plate. We also reproduced the solidification process of molten alloy in CFD analysis. Because we conducted an air flow as an external force to the alloy which was in a liquid state, we need to consider this external force effect on the metal plate in the future. We report the current data including both the experiment and the calculation.
