Abstract
Flow induced vibration of a head gimbal assembly (HGA), called "windage", is a very huge obstacle to achieving the higher track densities in hard disk drives. This report shows the effect of HGA and actuator-arm configurations on windage. Windage was measured by using a laser Dopller vibrometer in a spinstand. The main experimental results are as follows. Miniaturizing HGAs is an effective way to reduce windage because its natural frequencies become higher. The thicker actuator arm achieves the lower windage. These are useful knowledge to optimize parameters of an HGA and a head stack assembly.
