Effect of suspension design on the non-operational shock response in a load/unload hard disk drive

Hard disk drives must be designed to be resistant to operational and non-operational shock (Jayson et al. in IEEE Trans Magn 38(5):2150–2152, 2002). Numerical and experimental results show that “lift-tab separation” and “dimple separation” are two possible failure modes of presently used head suspension assemblies (Murthy in Ph.D. thesis, Center for Magnetic Recording Research, University of California, San Diego, 2007). In addition, “dimple and tongue wear” at the interface of gimbal and dimple are areas of concern in the design and operation of high performance suspensions during shock. In this investigation, an improved numerical model for non-operational shock response of a load/unload hard disk drive is implemented by including design parameters of suspension such as dimple preload, suspension material, dimple height and the surface diameter of the dimple in the model. Results for dimple and lift-tab separation, as well as the maximum impact stress at the dimple region, as a function of preload and suspension design parameters, will be presented.