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Contact between a thermal flying height control slider and a disk asperity

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Abstract

Contact between a thermal flying height control slider and an asperity on a disk is investigated using finite element analysis. The finite element model developed accounts for transient elastic–plastic deformation and heat generation due to frictional heating. Plastic deformation and temperature rise of the read/write element are determined as a function of flying height of the slider, location of the read/write element as well as material properties of typical disk asperities. The model shows good agreement with experimental data. Significant plastic deformation and temperature rise were observed in the shield and alumina regions of the slider. Hard and stiff disk asperities, such as alumina asperities, result in more damage to the slider than soft and compliant nickel-phosphorus ones.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr. Raj Thangaraj, Dr. John Ji and Dr. Leo Volpe from Western Digital Corporation for helpful discussions with this paper. Wenping Song thanks the China Scholarship Council (CSC) and Prof. Guangyu Zhang from Harbin Institute of Technology, for supporting his Ph.D. studies at UCSD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechatronics Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China

    Wenping Song

  2. Center for Magnetic Recording Research, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA

    Wenping Song, Hao Zheng & Frank E. Talke

  3. Western Digital Corporation, San Jose, CA, USA

    Andrey Ovcharenko & Min Yang

Authors
  1. Wenping Song
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  2. Andrey Ovcharenko
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  3. Min Yang
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  4. Hao Zheng
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  5. Frank E. Talke
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Correspondence to Wenping Song.

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Song, W., Ovcharenko, A., Yang, M. et al. Contact between a thermal flying height control slider and a disk asperity. Microsyst Technol 18, 1549–1557 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-012-1591-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-012-1591-0

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