THE INFLUENCE OF HEAD PARAMETERS ON TAKE-OFF VELOCITY

Wear at the head-disk interface of magnetic recording devices is dependent on the sliding contact distance. The sliding distance is dependent on head takeoff velocity (TOV). In this study, the dependence of TOV on selected bead parameters was measured with an air bearing spindle equipped with a strain gauge. Considering the range that was studied for each parameter, TOV was found to be strongly dependent on crown, skew angle, ski jump, and suspension preload, in decreasing order. Camber height and rail width were found to have a lesser influence. Edge blend did not affect TOV, however increasing edge blend improved the head-disk performance in contact start-stop (CSS) tests.