Forced and thermocapillary convection in silicon Czochralski crystal growth in semispherical crucible

In order to understand the influence of a semispherical crucible geometry combined with different convection modes as a thermocapillary convection, natural convection and forced convection, induced by crystal rotation, on melt flow pattern in silicon Czochralski crystal growth process, a set of numerical simulations are conducted using Fluent Software. We solve the system of equations of heat and momentum transfer in classical geometry as cylindrical and modified crystal growth process geometry as cylindro-spherical. In addition, we adopt hypothesis adapted to boundary conditions near the interface and calculations are executed to determine temperature, pressure and velocity fields versus Grashof and Reynolds numbers. The analysis of the obtained results led to conclude that there is advantage to modify geometry in comparison with the traditional one. The absence of the stagnation regions of fluid in the hemispherical crucible corner and the possibility to control the melt flow using the crystal rotation enhances the quality of the process comparatively to the cylindrical one. The pressure field is strongly related to the swirl velocity.