The system identification method was applied to experimentally investigate the dynamic characteristics of slider-air bearings in hard disk drives. The transient responses of sliders were measured, and the modal frequencies and damping ratios that are directly related to the stiffness and damping of the bearings were obtained by data processing and parameter identification. The dynamic property of a particular advanced air bearing (AAB) slider was measured and compared with simulation results. It was found that, contrary to usual perception, the suspension assembly significantly affects the dynamic characteristics of the air bearings. Contacts between the load beam and the flexure may introduce a larger damping and nonlinear property. The preliminary results also show that the proposed method is robust for experimentally evaluating the dynamic properties of slider-air bearings.

1.
Hayashi
T.
, and
Ohkubo
T.
,
1991
, “
Comparison of the Direct Numerical Solution and the Perturbation Solution in the Dynamic Analysis of a Flying Head Slider for Magnetic Disk Storage Operating at Very Low Spacing
,”
ASME Adv. in Info. Storage Syst.
, Vol.
2
, pp.
113
125
.
2.
Hu
Y.
, and
Bogy
D. B.
,
1997
, “
Dynamics Stability and Spacing Modulation of Sub-25 nm Fly Height Sliders
,”
ASME JOURNAL OF TRIBOLOGY
, Vol.
119
, No.
4
, pp.
646
652
.
3.
Ono, K., 1975, “Dynamic Characteristics of Air-Lubricated Slider Bearing for Noncontact Magnetic Recording,” ASME JOURNAL OF LUBRICATION TECHNOLOGY, pp. 250–260.
4.
Smith
P. W.
and
lwan
W. D.
,
1991
, “
Dynamic Figures of Merit for the Design of Gas-Lubricated Slider Bearings
,”
ASME Adv. in Info. Storage Syst.
, Vol.
3
, pp.
41
53
.
5.
Suzuki
S.
, and
Nishihira
H.
,
1996
, “
Study of Slider Dynamics Over Very Smooth Magnetic Disks
,”
ASME JOURNAL OF TRIBOLOGY
, Vol.
118
, pp.
382
387
.
6.
Tian
H.
,
Cheung
C. Y.
, and
Wang
P. K.
,
1997
, “
Non-Contact Induced Thermal Disturbance of MR Head Signals
,”
IEEE Tran. on Magnetics
, Vol.
33
, No.
5
, pp.
3130
3132
.
7.
Yura
S.
,
Matsuura
T.
,
Fujita
J.
, and
Suzuki
S.
,
1991
, “
Dynamics Response of Flying Head Sliders to a Step on a Disk
,”
ASME Adv. in Info. Storage Syst.
, Vol.
2
, pp.
103
111
.
8.
Zeng
Q. H.
,
Chen
L. S.
, and
Bogy
D. B.
,
1997
, “
A Modal Analysis Method for Slider Air Bearing in Hard Disk Drives
,”
IEEE Trans. on Magnetics
, Vol.
33
, No.
5
, pp.
3124
3126
.
9.
Zeng, Q. H., and Bogy, D. B., 1997, “Stiffness and Damping Evaluation of Air Bearing Sliders and New Designs with High Damping,” ASME JOURNAL OF TRIBOLOGY (to be published).
10.
Zhang
S. Y.
, and
Bogy
D. B.
,
1998
, “
Variation of the Heat Flux Between a Slider and the Air Bearing when the Slider Flies over an Asperity
,”
IEEE Trans. on Magnetics
, Vol.
34
, No.
4
, pp.
1705
1707
.
This content is only available via PDF.
You do not currently have access to this content.