Shock pulse width effects in operational drop test simulation of a small form factor disk drive with sub-10 nm air bearing slider

The interest in the effects of shock on HDDs has come into currency due to the increasingly hostile environments encountered in the usage of many consumer electronics and portable devices. This paper discusses the shock pulse width effects in operational drop test simulation of a small form factor disk drive. The drive is subjected to half sine acceleration shock pulse with varying width. A finite element model of the hard disk drive is developed in the commercially available finite element package, ANSYS/LSDYNA. The sub-10 nm air bearing between the disk and the slider is modeled by nonlinear springs. The contact between the disk and the slider is also considered. It is found that the shock response of the drive is sensitive to the shock pulse width. The developed method can be applied to evaluate the mechanical & dynamic characteristics of any other small structure, such as MEMS devices and micro/nano-scale devices.