A new evaluation technique has been developed to measure the hardness of particulate matter by using a compression and stress relaxation test. In this paper we determined the constant k' in Hertz equation from the analysis of the proportional region and compared it with k' calculated from Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio for the verification of this method. Furthermore the effect of particle size distribution on the experimental results was discussed. It was shown that the constant k' obtained from the analysis of the proportional region was well correlated with the calculated k'. It was also found that the value of k' was almost independent of the particle size distribution. These results indicate that the constant k' determined by this method can be a new hardness index of particulate matter.
Improvement of semiconductor integration requires the contamination control of finer particle in semiconductor manufacturing processes. In particular, the control of particle contamination in semiconductor material gases is important for enhancing the production yield. A flow-cell type optical particle counter based on light scattering method was developed for real-time measurement of particles in semiconductor material gases. In this paper, the flow-cell type particle counter was inserted in gas supply lines of semiconductor manufacturing processes. This enabled direct and in-line measurement of particles in the semiconductor material gases for the first time. The measurements showed that the concentration of particles in semiconductor material gases depended on the material and condition of gas cylinders and gas filters. The particle concentration was also affected by the operation of gas supply systems. It was suggested that there was a considerable amount of particulate contaminant generation in the semiconductor gases. The measured results for inert gases were significantly different from those of the semiconductor gases. Consequently, the importance of the direct and in-line measurement was confirmed.
This paper presents experimental results on particle behavior in dense phase inside a vertically vibrated container under microgravity. Glass particles of 56μm in average diameter were vibrated in a rectangular container with frequencies between 50 and 250Hz. Parabolic flights of aircraft were performed to achieve 20 seconds of microgravity. Particles formed a laminated structure under microgravity: thin particle layers overlapped and thin air layer was interposed between them. With the increase in frequency, the number of layers increased and the distance between them decreased. However, the structure of layers was not affected by loading masses and acceleration amplitude.