Effect of disk clamping conditions on the operational shock response of hard disk drives

The mechanical robustness of HDDs during operational state has become increasingly more important. In this paper the effect of disk clamping conditions on the operational shock response of a hard disk drive is investigated numerically. A finite element model of the hard disk drive is developed in the commercially available finite element package, ANSYSILSDYNA. The overall model includes the head arm assembly (HAA) and the disk. The shock responses of the drive under half-sine acceleration pulses are simulated when the disk is subjected to various clamping conditions. It is found that the shock response of the drive decreases with the more tightly clamped disk.