Vibration analysis of inhomogeneous elastica in hard disk drives

Reduction of flexible cable vibrations has been one of the engineering dynamics focus in magnetic recording disk drives. This paper investigates the effect of effect of inhomogeneous composition on the flexible cable´s mode shapes through parameter studies using experimental image processing and finite element method. It is found that placement and design of the inhomogeneous composition such ad damper or PZT film can significantly alter the cable´s modal shape and modal displacements, which potentially can be used to reduce transmission of the cable´s vibrations onto the rotary actuator.