A Computational Analysis for Thin Air Film Lubrication of Magnetic Recording Disk Memory : 1st Report

Abstract

The rarefied gas lubrication was analyzed based on modefied Reynolds equation and a FEM formulation was adopted for the computation with a trial function separated locally. The air film under the slider has such a thin dimension as 1/3000 (depth/width) and flows in one direction. Therefore the distribution of the pressure in transversal direction is almost constant except the boundary region. Typical two dimensional FEM formulation is not adequate for this type of problem. Results presented in this report show the above perspective. The computational analysis was done for three types of sliders, that is, a tapered flat slider, a two rail slider and a zero load slider. All results reveal the applicability of the present method of computation.