Abstract
In order to study aerodynamic characteristics of an access arm equipped on hard disk drives, we proposed a new method of simulating high-speed air flow around an access arm by water flow with an enlarged arm model based on Reynolds number similitude. Flow visualization around the arm model and measurement of fluid dynamic force were conducted. In the experiments, a shear flow generator of honeycomb type was used to simulate velocity profile of flow between corotating disks. As a result, it was found that incidence profile has little effect on the dynamic lift of an access arm
