Description:
During sawing of silicon wafers for the photovoltaic industry, the variations in temperature will influence the process performance and surface quality of the wafers. To investigate the significance of this effect, the temperature field and heat transfer have been studied experimentally and computationally. Among others, it is found that the temperature typically can increase from 30 °C at the inlet to 65 °C at the outlet of the sawing channel. It is also shown that viscous dissipation is by far the most significant heating source in the process.