Abstract: A moment-flex head suspension has a construction that reduces the pitch and roll stiffness of the read/write head support while maintaining the lateral stiffness of the flexure or gimbal of the head suspension sufficiently high.

Abstract: A head suspension for use in a rigid disk drive is provided having an improved load control as provided by its spring region for decoupling the effect of loading from torsion resonance performance and for reducing the load loss caused by backbending. The head suspension includes a load beam having an actuator mounting region, a rigid section, a flexure including a slider bond pad, and a spring region between the actuator mounting region and the rigid section, the spring region having a hinge line defined across its transverse width positioned to permit the offset height to varied from its predetermined position without substantially changing the longitudinal profile of the head suspension. The hinge line is preferably provided substantially at an interface of the actuator mounting region and the spring region to provide the decoupling function.

Abstract: A load beam for a head suspension has high lateral and torsional stiffness across the entire length of the load beam to assure high lateral bending and torsional resonance frequencies. The load beam utilizes an optimized top profile for distributing mass transversely of the load beam and over the longitudinal length of the load beam in a way to increase lateral stiffness and torsional stiffness. To increase lateral stiffness, a wider and/or thicker region is provided near the actuator mounting side of the load beam, while torsional stiffness is enhanced by taking mass away from the outside edges in the remainder of the load beam extending toward its distal tip. A load beam top profile is defined by side edges, each providing a spring region and a proximal portion of the rigid region, a curve having a center of curvature within the load beam structure, while a more distal portion of the rigid region is defined by curves having a center of curvature outside the load beam material.

Abstract: A disk drive suspension for mounting to the end of an actuator arm including a load beam having a rigid region, a base on a proximal of the load beam, and a flexure for receiving and supporting a read/write head on a distal end of the load beam. Gaps are cut out of high strain regions of the rigid region of the load beam and filled with damping material. The damper filled gaps reduce the amplitude of resonant frequency vibrations in the disk drive suspension.