AN OPTIMUM DESIGN OF THE TRANSVERSE PRESSURE CONTOUR SLIDER FOR ENHANCED FLYING CHARACTERISTICS

This paper proposes a design method for determining the configuration of a TPC slider by using art optimization technique in order to meet t he desired flying characteristics over the entire recording band The d esired flying characteristics considered in this study are to minimize the variation in flying height from a target value, to maintain the p itch angle as large as possible, to keep the roll angle as small as po ssible, and to keep the outside rail to fly lower than the inside rail . The design variables selected are left-side step width, pad width, r ight-side step width, side step depth, front taper height, and pivot o ffset in the transverse direction of the slider. The sequential quadra tic programming (SQP) method in Automated Design Synthesis (ADS) is us ed to efficiently find the optimum design variables which simultaneous ly meet all the desired flying characteristics. To validate the sugges ted design method, a computer program is developed and applied to the configuration design of two TPC slider models positioned by a rotary a ctuator. The optimum configurations of each slider model are automatic ally obtained for three different target flying heights with the same predefined skew angle range without any difficulty. This shows the eff ectiveness of the proposed design method in comparison with the conven tional one based on the parametric study.