Air Bearing Using Bernoulli Effect to Obtain Pressure Differential
Original Publication Date: 1983-Oct-01
Included in the Prior Art Database: 2005-Feb-07
This article describes an arrangement for suspending magnetic recording heads between a pair of discs in a recording head disk drive. Air flow is supplied by the Bernoulli effect to provide low friction support by separating the bearing surfaces with air drawn through the arrangement. The low pressure regions around an aerodynamically designed head are used to suck the air in through the bearing. The concept is illustrated below for a head moving symmetrically between two disc surfaces. This symmetric structure is not necessary for the above principle to work. Fig. 1 is a vertical elevation of a magnetic recording head drive for a stack of magnetic recording disks a. Fig. 2 is a section taken along line 2-2 in Fig. 1. Fig. 3 is a perspective view of several elements including the air bearing member c (of Figs.