Simultaneous measurements of disk vibration and pressure fluctuation in turbulent flow developing in a model hard disk drive

The complex flow features inside hard disk drive models are investigated in an axisymmetric and a semi-open shroud configurations. For the axisymmetric case, we have employed both experimental and computational approaches. The experiment focuses on both flow dynamics and the disk vibration, where measurements of the fluctuating pressure and velocity are undertaken at some representative points. The correlation between the disk vibration and the fluctuating pressure in the turbulent flow between disks is evident from the spectral analysis. The experimentally observed fluctuating pressure and velocity are partly due to the disk vibration and its contribution could be estimated by comparing the experiment with the results of a large eddy simulation. For the semi-open shroud case, although the characteristic peaks attributable to the large-scale vortical structure are still observed in the power spectra, the pressure fluctuation and the disk vibration are suppressed when the arm is inserted. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.