Flow-induced vibration reduction in HDD by using a spoiler

To reduce the flow-induced vibration (FIV) of the head stack assembly (HSA) in the hard disk drive (HDD), we experimentally studied the spoiler, which is put between disks. This study was carried out using a laser doppler vibrometer (LDV) to measure the amplitude of the head slider vibration. We also measured the power consumption of the spindle motor. As parameters of the spoiler shape, the thickness and the length were selected. From the experimental result, these parameters effect significantly both the head´s vibration and the power consumption. This result suggests that the flow rate reduction with the spoiler causes a reduction of the HSA´s FIV, and the energy loss with the spoiler causes an increase of the power consumption. We defined the spoiler´s FIV-reducing efficiency as a ratio of the amplitude reduction to the power consumption increase. The length change makes the peak value. This is caused by the fact that the FIV reduction becomes almost constant when the spoiler is longer than the carriage arm length inside disk region, although the spoiler length makes power consumption monotonically large.