Numerical Studies of Heat Transfer in Rarefied Gases at Head-Disk Interface

Abstract

In this article we derived a new heat transfer model by treating the heat conduction and viscous dissipation in the slip and transition flow regimes as an intermediate function of continuum heat transfer model and free molecular heat transfer model. We also employed this heat transfer model, together with our self-developed air bearing simulation code called ABSolution to analyze heat transfer behaviors at the head-disk interface (HDI) of two thermal flying height control (TFC) sliders. We found that slider design has a significant effect on the net heat flux from the slider to the disk. A properly designed TFC slider, which uses low pressure distribution around the reader/writer elements, can reduce air bearing cooling and compensation effects in this area and increase the thermal actuation efficiency of the slider. The thermal accommodation coefficient between the slider and the disk is also an important parameter to affect the heat flux at the HDI. Therefore, its effect should be considered carefully to improve the accuracy in simulating TFC sliders.