Transient Response of The Optimal Taper-Flat Head Slider in Magnetic Storage Devices

This paper presents a method to predict the transient characteristic of the air lubricated slider head in a hard disk drive by using optimization technique. The time dependent modified Reynolds equation based on the molecular slip flow approximation equations was used to describe the fluid flow within the air bearing and the implicit finite difference scheme is applied to calculate the pressure distribution under the slider head. The exhaustive search combined with the Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno method were employed to obtain optimum design variables which are taper angle, rail width and taper length in order to keep the forces and moments acting on the slider head in dynamic equilibrium. The results show that the optimal head slider of the magnetic head has good stability characteristic that can reach the steady state within 0.5 microsecond.