Flow-induced vibration measurement system for Head Gimbal Assembly

Abstract

The flow-induced vibration of a head gimbal assembly, known as “windage", is a very large obstacle for achieving the higher track densities in hard disk drives. We developed a windage measurement system that can measure windage by a laser Doppler vibrometer in a spin stand at various conditions, such as different disk-rotational speeds, temperatures, and so on. Therefore, the developed system is useful for investigating the nature of windage and to design new head gimbal assembly to reduce windage.