Fluid dynamic modeling of an industrial wet chemical process bath for the production of silicon solar cells

Simulation of the fluid flow in a present basin of a wet chemical plant gains a deeper understanding of the processes in the basin. The process solution is circulated by a pump from the supply pipe, through a perforated plate, along a carrier and over an overflow collar back to the supply pipe. For the described system a simulation procedure had to be found. The most important approximations for the simulation were: (1) The separation of the model into supply pipe and a process basin and (2) the replacement of the perforated plate by the Screen feature. It was shown that the simulation could be separated into two study steps. The relative difference of the velocity magnitude of the one and two steps simulation was 2% relatively. The fluid flow in the basin was validated by measurements with an acoustic digital flow meter. The validation was carried out, with the best consensus found in the middle of the basin with an experimental velocity of 20±4 mm/s and a simulated velocity of 19±3 mm/s. A reduction of the velocity of 87% was shown, due to the perforated plate. The Screen feature cannot be used without further adjustments on the solidity sS and the refractive index i.