Local heat transfer characteristics in a single rotating disk and co-rotating disks

Abstract

The present study investigates convective heat/mass transfer and flow characteristics inside rotating disks. The rotating disks are simulated on the commonly used 3.5^″ hard disk drives (HDD). The experiments are conducted for the various hub heights of 5, 10 and 15 mm in a single rotating disk and 4, 6 and 8 mm in co-rotating disks and for the various rotating Reynolds numbers of 5.53 × 10⁴, 8.53 × 10⁴ and 1.13 × 10⁵. To accommodate the general operating conditions of HDD, the experiments are also conducted with an obstruction of rectangular cross-section in the space, which simulates a read-write head arm. A naphthalene sublimation technique is employed to determine the detailed local heat transfer coefficients on the rotating disks using the heat and mass transfer analogy. Flow field measurements are conducted using laser Doppler anemometry (LDA) and numerical calculations are performed simultaneously to analyze the flow patterns induced by disk rotation. The results of a single rotating disk show that the heat transfer on the rotating disk is enhanced considerably according to the reduction of the hub height and the increase of the rotating Reynolds number. The head arm inserted in the cavity between the rotating disk and the cover enhances uniformity of the heat/mass transfer on the disk due to the deficit of the momentum in the average flow despite the enhancement of the tangential component of fluctuation velocity. The heat/mass transfer rates on the co-rotating disks have very low values near the hub in the inner region of the solid-body rotation and increase rapidly toward the outer region. The change of heat/mass transfer for various hub heights is negligible.