Heat transfer and flow characteristics in the hard disk drive tester

The numerical results of the heat transfer and flow characteristics in the hard disk drive tester are presented. The testing of the hard disk drive with keeping drives within the normal and high temperatures in the tester has been introduced as one of the manufacturing processes of the hard disk drive. The cooling air entering the tester is induced by the 10 axial fans into the tester and is impinged the hard disk drives and then discharged to the atmosphere. The k-epsilon standard turbulent model is applied to analyze the model. The results obtained from the model are verified by comparing with the measured data. Reasonable agreement is obtained from the comparison between the results obtained from the model and those from the experiment. The numerical results show that the flow and temperature distribution of cooling air are not uniformed. Which none-uniform temperature and accumulated heat are significantly factors to the failure of the hard disk drives. The results of this study are of technology importance for the efficient design and/or approved hard disk drive tester to decrease hard disk drive failure. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd.