The Effect of the Accommodation Coefficient on Slider Air Bearing Simulation

In solving the slider air bearing problem, both the Molecular Gas-film Lubrication (MGL) model and the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) model require the accommodation coefficient as input. The accommodation coefficient represents the fraction of the air molecules that interact with solid boundaries in a diffusive manner. In general, the value 1 is used for the accommodation coefficient, which represents a fully diffusive reflection. However, in magnetic hard disk drives, the disk and slider surfaces are becoming ever smoother with different kinds of lubrication on the disk, while the temperature is becoming higher due to the faster spindle speed. Under these conditions the unit value of the accommodation coefficient may no longer be suitable. In order to understand the effect of the accommodation coefficient on the slider’s flying parameters, we used Kang’s new database for the Poiseuille flow rate $Qp$ and Couette flow rate $Qc$ to solve the modified Reynolds equation for two groups of sliders, e.g., negative and positive pressure sliders (“negative” refers to sliders with subambient pressure zones). The results show that, in general, the smaller the accommodation coefficient, the lower the flying height and pitch angle. Positive pressure sliders are more sensitive to the accommodation coefficient than are negative pressure sliders. The typical discrepancy in flying height is around 10%. Also, it is shown that for positive pressure sliders the lower the flying height, the larger the discrepancy percentage. [S0742-4787(00)00402-1]