Aerodynamic stabilization of a flexible optical disk with an asymmetrically and triangularly arranged stabilizer

Abstract

We studied a flexible optical disk (FOD) system comprising a flexible disk and stabilizer. We improved the stabilizer system based on our previous design: a triangularlly arranged stabilizer system. The part that was improved was the arrangement of the stabilizers; we made them asymmetrically. We experimentally demonstrated that the asymmetrical design effectively controls the aerodynamic stabilization at a pickup focal point. The suppressed axial runout we actually evaluated at the focal point was less than 10 µm at a rotational speed from 1,000 to 7,000 and at radii from 35 to 50 mm. The asymmetrical effect corresponded well with the pressure field calculated using a coupled analysis, which combined a fluid and structural analysis.