Control Of Vortex Shedding Associated With A Hard Disk Drive Damper Plate
A hard disk drive damper plate comprises a planar main body having a generally rectangular cross-section and a splitter portion extending away from the main body in a radial direction. The splitter portion operates to disrupt vortex shedding corresponding to secondary gas flow associated with the planar main body. Various embodiments involve the length, thickness, and shape of the splitter portion, as well as how much of the planar main body may be provisioned with such a splitter portion.
Embodiments of the invention may relate generally to hard disk drives and more particularly to controlling the vortex shedding associated with damper plates.
BACKGROUNDA hard-disk drive (HDD) is a non-volatile storage device that is housed in a protective enclosure and stores digitally encoded data on one or more circular disk having magnetic surfaces. When an HDD is in operation, each magnetic-recording disk is rapidly rotated by a spindle system. Data is read from and written to a magnetic-recording disk using a read-write head that is positioned over a specific location of a disk by an actuator. A read-write head uses a magnetic field to read data from and write data to the surface of a magnetic-recording disk. A write head makes use of the electricity flowing through a coil, which produces a magnetic field. Electrical pulses are sent to the write head, with different patterns of positive and negative currents. The current in the coil of the write head induces a magnetic field across the gap between the head and the magnetic disk, which in turn magnetizes a small area on the recording medium.
Because the recording disks spin within an HDD during operation, gas flow is generated. Indeed, the air bearing slider (or, generally, gas bearing slider) on which the read-write head is housed relies on such gas flow in order to fly over the disk in order o function as purposed. However, such gas flow generated within an HDD can have detrimental effects when impinging upon or interacting with the disk stack and the head stack assembly (HSA), for example, such as by contributing to imparting unwanted flow induced vibration (FIV) upon the disks and/or HSA. FIV can negatively impact head positioning accuracy thereby leading to track misregistration (TMR), which essentially refers to the mis-location of the read-write head relative to its desired location, of which there are numerous components. Hence, controlling the gas flow within an HDD is considered an ongoing design challenge.
Any approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
Embodiments are illustrated by way of example, and not by way of limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings and in which like reference numerals refer to similar elements and in which:
Approaches to a damper plate are described. In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments of the invention described herein. It will be apparent, however, that the embodiments of the invention described herein may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the embodiments of the invention described herein.
Physical Description of an Illustrative Operating ContextEmbodiments may be used in the context of a damper plate for a hard disk drive (HDD). Thus, in accordance with an embodiment, a plan view illustrating an HDD 100 is shown in
The HDD 100 further includes an arm 132 attached to the HGA 110, a carriage 134, a voice-coil motor (VCM) that includes an armature 136 including a voice coil 140 attached to the carriage 134 and a stator 144 including a voice-coil magnet (not visible). The armature 136 of the VCM is attached to the carriage 134 and is configured to move the arm 132 and the HGA 110 to access portions of the medium 120, all collectively mounted on a pivot shaft 148 with an interposed pivot bearing assembly 152. In the case of an HDD having multiple disks, the carriage 134 may be referred to as an “E-block,” or comb, because the carriage is arranged to carry a ganged array of arms that gives it the appearance of a comb.
An assembly comprising a head gimbal assembly (e.g., HGA 110) including a flexure to which the head slider is coupled, an actuator arm (e.g., arm 132) and/or load beam to which the flexure is coupled, and an actuator (e.g., the VCM) to which the actuator arm is coupled, may be collectively referred to as a head stack assembly (HSA). An HSA may, however, include more or fewer components than those described. For example, an HSA may refer to an assembly that further includes electrical interconnection components. Generally, an HSA is the assembly configured to move the head slider to access portions of the medium 120 for read and write operations.
With further reference to
Other electronic components, including a disk controller and servo electronics including a digital-signal processor (DSP), provide electrical signals to the drive motor, the voice coil 140 of the VCM and the head 110a of the HGA 110. The electrical signal provided to the drive motor enables the drive motor to spin providing a torque to the spindle 124 which is in turn transmitted to the medium 120 that is affixed to the spindle 124. As a result, the medium 120 spins in a direction 172. The spinning medium 120 creates a cushion of air that acts as an air-bearing on which the air-bearing surface (ABS) of the slider 110b rides so that the slider 110b flies above the surface of the medium 120 without making contact with a thin magnetic-recording layer in which information is recorded. Similarly in an HDD in which a lighter-than-air gas is utilized, such as helium for a non-limiting example, the spinning medium 120 creates a cushion of gas that acts as a gas or fluid bearing on which the slider 110b rides.
The electrical signal provided to the voice coil 140 of the VCM enables the head 110a of the HGA 110 to access a track 176 on which information is recorded. Thus, the armature 136 of the VCM swings through an arc 180, which enables the head 110a of the HGA 110 to access various tracks on the medium 120. Information is stored on the medium 120 in a plurality of radially nested tracks arranged in sectors on the medium 120, such as sector 184. Correspondingly, each track is composed of a plurality of sectored track portions (or “track sector”) such as sectored track portion 188. Each sectored track portion 188 may include recorded information, and a header containing error correction code information and a servo-burst-signal pattern, such as an ABCD-servo-burst-signal pattern, which is information that identifies the track 176. In accessing the track 176, the read element of the head 110a of the HGA 110 reads the servo-burst-signal pattern, which provides a position-error-signal (PES) to the servo electronics, which controls the electrical signal provided to the voice coil 140 of the VCM, thereby enabling the head 110a to follow the track 176. Upon finding the track 176 and identifying a particular sectored track portion 188, the head 110a either reads information from the track 176 or writes information to the track 176 depending on instructions received by the disk controller from an external agent, for example, a microprocessor of a computer system.
An HDD's electronic architecture comprises numerous electronic components for performing their respective functions for operation of an HDD, such as a hard disk controller (“HDC”), an interface controller, an arm electronics module, a data channel, a motor driver, a servo processor, buffer memory, etc. Two or more of such components may be combined on a single integrated circuit board referred to as a “system on a chip” (“SOC”). Several, if not all, of such electronic components are typically arranged on a printed circuit board that is coupled to the bottom side of an HDD, such as to HDD housing 168.
References herein to a hard disk drive, such as HDD 100 illustrated and described in reference to
The term “substantially” will be understood to describe a feature that is largely or nearly structured, configured, dimensioned, etc., but with which manufacturing tolerances and the like may in practice result in a situation in which the structure, configuration, dimension, etc. is not always or necessarily precisely as stated. For example, describing a sidewall as “substantially vertical” would assign that term its plain meaning, such that the sidewall is vertical for all practical purposes but may not be precisely at 90 degrees.
As discussed, the gas flow generated within an HDD can have detrimental effects when impinging upon or interacting with the disk stack, such as by contributing to unwanted flow induced vibration (FIV) upon the disks, which can negatively impact head positioning accuracy thereby leading to track misregistration (TMR). Furthermore, one restriction that may be encountered in controlling gas flow within an HDD may be the lack of useable volume within the drive that might be needed for incorporating control mechanisms into the drive. Thus, one available approach to controlling the gas flow within a multi-disk HDD is the use of damper plates.
Damper PlatesThe primary purpose of damper plates is to interrupt the formation of vertical gas flow structures at the disk periphery which can excite vertical vibration of the disks. Damper plates retard the gas flow, thereby extracting flow energy which can excite vibration of the disks and arms, which in turn attenuates the FIV inside the disk stack to a manageable level. As such, the larger the damper plate (i.e., extending closer to the spindle motor hub and the inner diameter of the disks), the more effective it is for lowering track misregistration (TMR). Additionally, the effectiveness of a damper plate is controlled by its thickness. As the thickness increases, thereby reducing the disk-to-damper-plate spacing, more attenuation in disk vibration can be realized. This is because the decrease in disk-to-damper-plate spacing effectively lowers the local Reynolds number, thereby reducing the turbulent intensity of the gas flow in the disk stack. However, concerns with the use of a full damper plate, filling as much space between adjacent disks with solid material as physically and operationally possible, include the additional exposure to shock issues, the additional power penalties, and manufacturing assembly limitations. Furthermore, as with any mechanism positioned within the disk stack (e.g., spoilers, diverters), damper plates also shed damaging gas flow wakes that exacerbate FIV. Thus, the gas flow characteristics between the inner diameter of a damper plate and the outer diameter of the spindle motor (or of a disk spacer, if present) are key to controlling FIV associated with the disk stack.
Therefore, one approach to controlling FIV is to control the “secondary flow” inside the disk stack. Secondary flow is the gas flow in the radial (r) direction and the axial direction normal to the radial direction (e.g., normal to the plan view of damper plate 200 in
An approach to controlling the vortex shedding associated with or corresponding to the secondary gas flow involves the use of a damper plate having a splitter mechanism, whereby the splitter mechanism can help prevent eddies from interacting undesirably.
The splitter portion 404 (
With reference back to
D=the radial distance between the inner and outer diameters of the disks 520;
T=the thickness of the main body 402;
t=the thickness of the splitter portion 404;
t<<T;
Lm=25% to 75% of D; and
Ls>4T.
It is noteworthy that Ls should be sufficiently long, i.e., Ls>4T, for the purposes of a vortex suppression device. Hence, the end of the splitter portion 404 preferably should not overlap with any disk spacer or other structural feature extending radially from the disk spindle motor hub. Also note that t should be significantly less than T but thick enough to be structurally sound. For example, a typical thickness of splitter portion 404 may be approximately 10% to 20% of T. The foregoing dimensional guidelines are further applicable to the embodiments illustrated in
With reference to
0<t<T;
0<L.
According to respective embodiments, to desirably disrupt the vortex shedding process due to secondary gas flow, the following structural relationships apply to the damper plate 600:
t<0.25T;
L≥4T.
In reference to each of
Furthermore and according to an embodiment, a damper plate such as damper plate 800 may be configured with a splitter portion 804 (which has a radial width in the radial direction) that extends from the main body 802 in the radial direction and where the width of the splitter portion tapers along at least a portion of the circumferential length of the main body 802, e.g., as depicted in
In the foregoing description, embodiments of the invention have been described with reference to numerous specific details that may vary from implementation to implementation. Therefore, various modifications and changes may be made thereto without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the embodiments. Thus, the sole and exclusive indicator of what is the invention, and is intended by the applicants to be the invention, is the set of claims that issue from this application, in the specific form in which such claims issue, including any subsequent correction. Any definitions expressly set forth herein for terms contained in such claims shall govern the meaning of such terms as used in the claims. Hence, no limitation, element, property, feature, advantage or attribute that is not expressly recited in a claim should limit the scope of such claim in any way. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense.
In addition, in this description certain process steps may be set forth in a particular order, and alphabetic and alphanumeric labels may be used to identify certain steps. Unless specifically stated in the description, embodiments are not necessarily limited to any particular order of carrying out such steps. In particular, the labels are used merely for convenient identification of steps, and are not intended to specify or require a particular order of carrying out such steps.
Claims
1. A hard disk drive comprising:
- a plurality of recording disk media rotatably mounted on a spindle;
- a head slider comprising a read-write transducer configured to read from and to write to at least one of said disk media;
- a voice coil actuator configured to move said head slider to access portions of said at least one disk media; and
- a damper plate interposed between two adjacent disk media and extending in a direction toward the center of said disk media, said damper plate comprising: one or more mounting portions at respective locations around an outer perimeter of said damper plate, a planar main body extending away from said one or more mounting portions a first distance between adjacent said disk media and having a substantially rectangular cross-section, and a splitter portion extending away from said main body a second distance further in a radial direction toward said center of said disk media, and comprising a primary flow portion extending away from said main body in a circumferential direction in a direction of primary gas flow.
2. The hard disk drive of claim 1, wherein said splitter portion operates to disrupt vortex shedding corresponding to secondary gas flow associated with said planar main body.
3. The hard disk drive of claim 2, wherein said planar main body has approximately zero edge rounding associated with the corners of said rectangular cross-section.
4. (canceled)
5. The hard disk drive of claim 1,
- wherein said planar main body has a thickness in an axial direction normal to said radial direction and said splitter portion has a length in said radial direction; and
- wherein said length is at least four times said thickness.
6. The hard disk drive of claim 1,
- wherein said planar main body and said splitter portion each have a respective thickness in an axial direction normal to said radial direction; and
- wherein said thickness of said splitter portion is approximately one fourth said thickness of said main body.
7. The hard disk drive of claim 1, wherein said splitter portion has a substantially rectangular cross-section.
8. The hard disk drive of claim 1, wherein the thickness of said splitter portion tapers from thicker to thinner in said radial direction away from said main body.
9. The hard disk drive of claim 1, wherein said splitter portion comprises an upper surface and a lower surface and wherein said upper and lower surfaces are curvilinear.
10. The hard disk drive of claim 1, said damper plate further comprising:
- an intermediate portion extending away from said main body in said radial direction and from which said splitter portion extends further in said radial direction, said intermediate portion having a non-rectangular cross-section.
11. The hard disk drive of claim 1, wherein said planar main body has a circumferential length, and wherein said splitter portion extends from said main body in said radial direction along the entirety of said circumferential length.
12. The hard disk drive of claim 1, wherein said planar main body has a circumferential length, and wherein said splitter portion extends from said main body in said radial direction along only a portion of said circumferential length.
13. The hard disk drive of claim 1, wherein said planar main body has a circumferential length and said splitter portion has a radial width, and wherein said width tapers along at least a portion of said circumferential length.
14. A hard disk drive damper plate for interposing between adjacent recording disk media, the damper plate comprising:
- one or more mounting portions at respective locations around an outer perimeter of said damper plate,
- a planar main body extending away from said one or more mounting portions a first distance and having a substantially rectangular cross-section; and
- a splitter portion extending away from said main body a second distance in a radial direction, and comprising a primary flow portion extending away from said main body in a circumferential direction in a direction of primary circumferential gas flow;
- wherein, when positioned in a circumferential gas flow, said splitter portion operates to disrupt vortex shedding corresponding to said circumferential gas flow and corresponding to secondary flow associated with said planar main body.
15. (canceled)
16. The damper plate of claim 14,
- wherein said planar main body has a thickness in an axial direction normal to said radial direction and said splitter portion has a length in said radial direction; and
- wherein said length is at least four times said thickness.
17. The damper plate of claim 14,
- wherein said planar main body and said splitter portion each have a respective thickness in an axial direction normal to said radial direction; and
- wherein said thickness of said splitter portion is approximately one fourth said thickness of said main body.
18. The damper plate of claim 14, wherein said splitter portion has a substantially rectangular cross-section.
19. The damper plate of claim 14, wherein the thickness of said splitter portion tapers from thicker to thinner in said radial direction away from said main body.
20. The damper plate of claim 14, wherein said splitter portion comprises an upper surface and a lower surface and wherein said upper and lower surfaces are curvilinear.
21. The damper plate of claim 14, wherein said splitter portion is symmetric about a midplane corresponding to said radial direction.
22. The damper plate of claim 14, said damper plate further comprising:
- an intermediate portion extending away from said main body in said radial direction and from which said splitter portion extends further in said radial direction, said intermediate portion having a non-rectangular cross-section.
23. The damper plate of claim 14, wherein said planar main body has a circumferential length, and wherein said splitter portion extends from said main body in said radial direction along the entirety of said circumferential length.
24. The damper plate of claim 14, wherein said planar main body has a circumferential length, and wherein said splitter portion extends from said main body in said radial direction along only a portion of said circumferential length.
25. The damper plate of claim 14, wherein said planar main body has a circumferential length and said splitter portion has a radial width, and wherein said width tapers along at least a portion of said circumferential length.
26. The hard disk drive of claim 10, wherein said splitter portion has a blade-like structure.
27. The damper plate of claim 14, wherein said splitter portion has a blade-like structure.
Type: Application
Filed: Nov 6, 2017
Publication Date: May 9, 2019
Inventors: Andre S. Chan (Palo Alto, CA), Scott D. Abrahamson (San Jose, CA)
Application Number: 15/804,391