Surface topology optimization of air bearing slider for wear durability in magnetic hard disk drives

In order to protect the slider and disk from excessive wear, a numerical scheme is proposed for transient dynamics at slider/disk interface with the emphasis on the slider wear mechanism and the surface topology optimization of sub-ambient pressure slider. For each transient flying height and slider attitude, the modified Reynolds lubrication equation is solved by the control volume method to obtain the simultaneous pressure distribution in the slider surface. Then the dynamic flying attitude of the slider subject to the calculated pressure distribution can be solved by the Quasi-Newton iteration method at each time step. On the basis of above work, the optimization of the slider surface topology is implemented, and it's concluded that slider crown has the most significant impact on the dynamic flying attitude and stability. Finally, a sub-ambient pressure slider is designed, which can effectively avoid the slider wear and severe fault of hard disk drive.