Microwear mechanism of head carbon film during head disk interface sliding contact

Thermomechanical sliding contact of head disk interface (HDI) causes critical wear on the carbon film of a head slider. An improved contact model accounting for both asperity and substrate deformation is applied to analyze the HDI contact behavior, while theories of frictional heat generation and heat transfer are used to investigate the change in HDI temperature. Based on actual HDI design and operation parameters, parametric study of thermomechanical HDI contact has been performed. It was found that severe wear of head carbon film would be significantly attributed to thermal degradation of carbon material during its sliding contact.