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Shock and Vibration Isolation Hard Drive, Washing Machine
Shock and Vibration Isolation Hard Drive, Washing Machine
DOI 10.1007/s00542-012-1592-z
TECHNICAL PAPER
Received: 26 September 2011 / Accepted: 11 June 2012 / Published online: 24 June 2012
Springer-Verlag 2012
Abstract Hard disk drives (HDDs) in laptop personal suffer critical failure when dropped or otherwise subjected
computers (PCs) are subject to impact-induced failure, as to external impacts. To minimize the likelihood of these
well as to operational vibrations. Elastic mounts with mechanical failures, shock and vibration analysis should be
cushioning materials are often used to minimize the like- incorporated into the design of system mountings for
lihood of failure in such cases. In this paper, we analyze the HDDs.
dynamic characteristics and shock response of the vibration The effects of shock and vibration on HDDs have been
isolation systems supporting HDDs. Anti-vibration per- extensively researched. Jayson et al. (2003) investigated
formance is investigated via position error signal and the effects of air bearing stiffness in response to external
acceleration transmissibility. Shock response is obtained shock. Zhu et al. (2006) employed topology optimization to
from a lumped parameter model, based on the nonlinearity improve the dynamic characteristics of HDD suspensions.
of the rubber mounts. Based on the results, we propose Muraoka et al. (2002) simulated the vibrations of the
guidelines for shock and vibration isolation systems, contact slider and gimbal of a flexible disk drive. In recent
including a dual rubber mount design. years, studies on the shock analysis of HDDs have become
more widespread in response to the increasing importance
of laptop portability. Harmoko et al. (2007) suggested a
1 Introduction more efficient approach for investigating the effects of
various HDD components on shock tolerance. Drop test
Mobile devices have become an important part of daily simulations and power spectrum analysis of a head actuator
life. This is especially true of laptop personal computers assembly were carried out by Shi et al. (2007). The shock
(PCs), which are portable enough to be used almost any- response of small-form-factor HDDs was analyzed by
where. However, the portability of laptop PCs is compro- Murthy et al. (2007) using the finite element method. In
mised if their components are not robust enough to endure addition, the latch design was introduced by Kuwajima
rugged operating environments. For example, the speakers et al. (2007) to enhance rotary shock resistance.
and optical disk drives (ODDs) installed in laptop PCs can However, only a few of these investigations have ana-
cause excessive vibrations, leading to user discomfort or lyzed or suggested improvements to the vibration isolation
unexpected power shutdowns in extreme cases. In partic- systems for laptop HDDs (Harmoko et al. 2009; Suwa and
ular, the read/write performance of an HDD is very vul- Aruga 1999), and none of these have systematically con-
nerable to excessive vibrations. Moreover, laptop PCs often sidered the rubber mount system, which is the most popular
method for isolating and supporting an HDD.
K.-S. Park S. Lim Y.-P. Park N.-C. Park (&) In this research, we focused on the dynamic behavior of
Center for Information Storage Device, Yonsei University, a 2.5-in. laptop HDD supported by rubber mounts. Accel-
Seoul, Korea eration transmissibility and position error signal (PES)
e-mail: pnch@yonsei.ac.kr
were examined with respect to the type of rubber mount to
Y.-B. Chang qualify the anti-vibration performance. Since rubber
Seagate Korea Design Center, Suwon, Korea mounts are considerably deformed during external shock,
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we considered the nonlinearity of the mounts by varying When the rubber mounts were not attached to or contacting
the stiffness and damping properties extracted from modal an HDD, they were vibrated by a magnetic exciter, and the
tests. The shock response was obtained via a 2-degree of frequency response function (accelerance) was measured
freedom (DOF) lumped parameter model, the validity of using an impedance head, while the compression ratio was
which was verified by a linear drop test. Finally, guidelines varied by a micro-stage, as shown in Fig. 2a. When the
based on the use of a dual rubber mount design are pro- rubber mounts supported an HDD, the compression ratio
posed for simultaneously improving the shock and vibra- due to the weight of the HDD was considered, as shown in
tion isolation performance. Fig. 2b. We attached two accelerometers, one to the jig and
the other to the bottom of the HDD spindle motor because
of its rigidity. An isolated laptop HDD was represented by
2 Vibration isolation a single-degree-of-freedom model. The estimated material
properties were automatically calculated by considering the
Nowadays, people often use laptops to enjoy multimedia preload induced by the HDD weight. From the measured
content, including movies and music. High-output speakers maximum value of the acceleration transmissibility (Tmax)
and ODDs create vibration problems, sometimes leading to and the damped natural frequency (wd), the damping ratio
power resets or increased operating time for copying data. and stiffness were calculated via Eqs. (1), (2), (3) using a
For vibration isolation, the 2.5-in. HDD is cushioned by 16 numerical search method based on the implicit Eq. (1)
rubber mounts, as shown in Fig. 1. Since the gap between (Kelly 2000).
the HDD and the laptop body frame should be 2 mm or less " p #1=2
(depending on the laptop specifications), it is impossible to 2 1 8f2
Tmax 4f p
utilize rubber mounts of various shapes. Thus, the mounts 2 16f2 16f4 8f2 2 1 8f2
have a simple rectangular shape, and lumped parameters 1
for rubber (e.g., stiffness and damping ratio, excluding
shape factors) are the main focus in this research. This x2d
k m 2
research concentrates on vibration and shock response for 1 f2
the vertical direction since this is the direction that shock p
c 2f mk 3
and vibration are predominantly transmitted to laptops. The
tilt vibratory mode of the system is rarely excited, due to In this work, a silicon elastomer and five butyl rubbers
the symmetric positioning of the mounts. (which are widely employed in electrical appliances) were
used for vibration isolation. Figure 3 shows the measured
2.1 Material properties of rubber mounts
Fig. 1 Vibration isolation system supported by rubber mounts Fig. 2 Experimental setup for estimating material property
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Microsyst Technol (2012) 18:15591566 1561
acceleration transmissibility and the simulated acceleration These vibrations amplify the acceleration response in
transmissibility based on the calculated material properties. a frequency range between 50 and 1,500 Hz, as shown
The values are summarized in the Table 1. The frequency in Fig. 4. Accordingly, it is necessary to isolate vibra-
responses agreed well, and hence the estimated material tions primarily in this frequency region. As Fig. 3
properties were appropriate. clearly shows, models R3 and R6 provide poor vibra-
tion isolation performance. However, aside from these
2.2 Vibration transmissibility two models, it is difficult to compare anti-vibration
performances. One method of quantifying the perfor-
Figure 4 shows the acceleration responses transmitted to mance is to integrate cumulatively a curve in the spe-
the HDD of a typical laptop from various sources, cific frequency range 01,500 Hz, as summarized in
including speaker and optical disk vibrations. Table 2.
Fig. 3 Acceleration
transmissibility
R4
R6
R1
R2
R5 R3
Acceleration Transmissibility
R4
R1 R6
R2
R5 R3
Frequency[Hz]
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R1 8.32 10.8 13.6 248.5 Consider an isolated laptop HDD with a 2-DOF system, as
R2 10.9 9.57 14.5 301.5 shown in Fig. 6. The isolation system consists of the laptop
R3 10.6 15.5 18.8 1,423 body with rubber feet (the lower isolator) and the laptop
R4 10.8 8.93 13.9 179.5 HDD supported by rubber mounts (the upper isolator). The
R5 10.7 9.28 14.2 432.1 masses of the laptop body and HDD are respectively
R6 9.98 35.4 36.8 2,769 denoted by m1 and m2. The bodies move relative to the
base, so that the line of motion of the bodies coincides with
that of the base. The lumped masses are regarded as
absolutely rigid bodies.
2.3 Position error signal (PES) The rubber mounts are represented by a lumped stiffness
and a damping coefficient, which vary with the compressed
Although the vibration performance of an HDD can easily displacement. A large relative displacement between the
be estimated in terms of acceleration transmissibility, HDD HDD and laptop body causes the stiffness to increase. Based
performance associated with the data transfer rate between on experimental results, the stiffness is approximated via
the head and the disk is better reflected by the PES char-
acteristics (Chang et al. 2002). PES is an important index
for predicting the track mis-registration (TMR) level, and
also provides useful information about the characteristics
of the vibrations induced by the HDD itself. PES can be
classified in terms of two constituents: repeatable run-out
(RRO) and non-repeatable run-out (NRRO). The RRO
component of PES results from spindle imbalance and
servo track written errors, and the RRO signal is usually
proportional to spindle RPM. The NRRO component
(which is the remaining error) is mainly induced by
structural vibrations of the rotating disk, suspension actu-
ator, and external excitations due to air flow and user
handling.
In order to measure PES, the slider head of the HDD is
controlled to locate on a specific track, and PES is trans-
ferred to an external PC via a hyper terminal. In this
research, a 2.5-in. HDD with two platters was used. The Fig. 5 Measured position error signal (PES)
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c2 c2 c1 k2 k2 k1
z1 z_1 z_2 z1 z2
m2 m1 m1 m2 m1 m1
7
c2 c1 k2 k1
z2 z_1 z_2 z1 z2 y 8
m1 m1 m1 m1
where z1 x2 x1 and z2 x1 y:
The equation of motion can be expressed in the matrix
form.
" #
Z_ 0 I Z 0
y 9
Z C K Z_ 1
"
#
Fig. 6 Lumped parameter model for shock analysis z1 mc22 mc21 c1
m1
where Z , C ; K
z2 c2
mc11
m1
exponential curve-fitting, in accordance with the following "
#
mk22 mk21 k1
Eq. (4). m1
k2
mk11
k2 z2 k0 eaz2 4 m1
The coefficients k0 and a denote the initial stiffness and 3.2 Linear drop test
the level of nonlinearity (hereafter referred to as the
stiffness factor), respectively. Figure 7 shows the measured A linear drop tester was developed to verify the mathe-
stiffness with respect to the deflection, and its matical model, as shown in Fig. 8. A jig with an isolated
approximation using Eq. (4). In addition, the stiffness and HDD descended along the linear guide and collided with
damping properties of the rubber feet on the bottom of the damping sheets, which could be used to adjust the
laptop body are assumed to be constant, and other shock duration. Two accelerometers were attached, one to
parameters used in the simulation are listed in Tables 3 the moving jig of the drop tester and the other to the back
and 4. The equation of motion is given by Eqs. (5) and (6). of the HDD spindle motor. Without loss of generality, the
m1 x1 c2 x_ 1 x_ 2 k2 x1 x2 c1 x_1 y_ shock input acceleration from the experiment illustrated in
Fig. 9 was applied to the analytical model instead of a half-
k1 x1 y 0 5
sine pulse, which is difficult to realize accurately in a linear
m2 x2 c2 x_ 2 x_ 1 k2 x2 x1 0 6 drop test. The derived equation of motion was solved
numerically via a nonlinear technique, such as the fourth-
For base excitation, it is convenient to introduce the
order RungeKutta method. After solving this nonlinear
relative displacement and velocity such as z1 and z2 as
ordinary differential equation, we compared the shock
follows.
response with the experimental results. If the stiffness was
assumed to be linear, the shock response was underesti-
mated, as shown in Fig. 10, and the predictions were quite
different from the experimental results. On the other hand,
the nonlinear simulation considered the stiffness variation
with respect to the compression ratio, as shown in Fig. 11.
The experimental transmitted acceleration was in good
agreement with the results of the nonlinear simulation.
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Table 3 Applied system parameter transmissibility (output-to-input ratio), the product of the
Parameters Value
shock duration and the natural frequency of the isolation
system must be less than about 1.07, as shown in Fig. 12.
Mass of HDD 0.098 kg However, the maximum deflection of the isolator may
Mass of laptop body 1.8 kg increase beyond the gap between the HDD and the laptop
Stiffness of rubber feet (k1) 1.57 MN/m body. For a specific shock duration, the natural frequency
Damping ratio of rubber feet (c1) 0.21 may be low enough to be within region 1 of Fig. 12, sat-
isfying the limit of maximum deflection. Otherwise, it
would be advantageous to raise the natural frequency for
Table 4 Coefficients for exponential curve-fitting setting the transmissibility curve, not in region 3, but in
region 2. Figure 13 shows the transmitted acceleration
Rubber type Initial stiffness (k0) Level of nonlinearity (a)
considering the nonlinearity of the rubber mounts. These
R1 31,328 2,915 nonlinear properties amplified the shock transmissibility,
R2 40,985 2,728 degrading their performance as shock isolators. In general,
R3 558,910 970.3 rubber mounts with lower initial stiffness have a high
R4 16,716 3,191 stiffness factor, and vice versa. Accordingly, from the point
R5 55,267 2,268 of view of shock performance only, it is appropriate to
R6 1,696,100 539.5 choose high stiffness and a low stiffness factor.
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200 Chang YB, Park DK, Park NC, Park YP (2002) Prediction of track
mis-registration due to disk flutter in hard disk driver. IEEE
190
Max. Transmitted Acceleration [G]
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