The effects of texture height and thickness of amorphous carbon nitride coating of a hard disk slider on the friction and wear of the slider against a disk

In order to minimize the stiction force caused by contact of the extremely smooth surfaces of head sliders and disks in hard disk drives, texture is usually applied on the disk surface. For future contact/near-contact recording, the stiction-induced high friction between slider and disk will become a problem. Texture on the slider/disk interface will still be an expected method to reduce friction. Recently, it was suggested to texture the slider surface. A protective coating is usually required on the textured slider surface to reduce wear of the texture. The results showed that texture on the slider surface was effective in reducing the friction between head sliders and disks. On the other hand, the texture and coating on the slider surface increase the spacing between the read/write element and the magnetic layer of the disk. The necessary and effective texture height and coating thickness are still not clear. In the present research, island-type textures with different heights (3–18 mn) were formed on slider surfaces by ion-beam etching. Amorphous carbon nitride (a-CN_x) coatings of different thicknesses (0–50 nm) were coated on the textured slider surfaces as a protective overcoat. The friction and wear properties of these sliders were evaluated by constant-speed drag tests against hard disks coated with diamond-like carbon (DLC). The results show that 2 nm texture on a slider surface is sufficient for low (0.3–0.5) and stable friction of the slider against the disk in a drag test, and coatings thicker than 5 nm show similar wear resistances of the texture on slider surfaces.     

Wear of single crystal silicon as a function of surface roughness

With increasing activities on micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) type microactuators, there is a growing need in understanding the tribological properties of silicon, the most commonly used wafer material for those devices. In particular, it is of interest if single crystal silicon used in microactuators exposed to rather low vertical loads is subject to wear. Therefore, wear tests using monocrystalline silicon on both sides of the tribological interface were conducted.A classic way to measure wear on sliders in contact with a tape or a rotating disk is to create an imprint using a Berkovich diamond tip mounted on a picoindenter. However, in our case we used a different approach. We created three studs on a slider’s surface by recessing the material outside the studs through an ion milling process. During the wear tests, the studs wore off. By measuring the remaining stud height, the wear volume could be determined at any point in time. The tests were performed on a pin on disk tester with a gimbaled slider to realize a flat on flat contact and a rather low normal force of 30 mN.     

Collision between a ring and a beam

With car–parapet collision accidents in mind, a normal collision between a free-flying half ring and a simply supported beam with/without axial constraints is studied, in which an elastic–plastic half ring with an attached mass and the elastic–plastic beam are taken as the simplest models of a car and a parapet, respectively. Particular attention is paid to the energy partitioning between the two structures and the evolution of the contact regions during collision. A mass–spring finite difference (MS–FD) model is employed whilst the large deflection and axial stretching/compression are incorporated. The numerical results show that the less stiff (i.e. softer) structure will dissipate more energy and the contact regions will move away from the initial contact points. With the increase of the relative thickness of the beam to the ring, the final deformation of the half ring will transform from a “U” shape to a “W” shape.     

Some observations on the CLNA model in fretting fatigue

Using the Atzori–Lazzarin criterion, the author has recently proposed a unified model for Fretting Fatigue denominated Crack-Like Notch Analogue—CLNA model, considering only two possible behaviours: either “crack-like” or “large blunt notch”. In a general FF condition, the former condition is treated with a single contact problem corresponding to the MIT Crack Analogue (CA) improved in some details also by the author. The latter, with a simple peak stress condition, i.e. a simple Notch Analogue model, simply stating that below the fatigue limit, infinite life is predicted for any size of contact. In the typical condition of constant normal load and in phase oscillating tangential and bulk loads, both limiting conditions are immediately written, and the CLNA model permits to collapse the effect of the contact loads on a single closed form equation (differently from many other models which do not permit this flexibility). For not too large contact areas (“crack-like” contact) no dependence at all on geometry is predicted, but only on 3 load factors (bulk stress, tangential load and average pressure) and size of the contact. Only in the “large blunt notch” region occurring typically only at very large sizes of contact does size-effect disappear, but the dependence on all other factors including geometry remains. The model compares favourably with some experimental results in the literature. In this paper, some aspects of the CLNA model are further elucidated.     

Tribological behaviour of duplex treated Ti–6Al–4V: combining nitrogen PSII with a DLC coating

The chemical structure and tribological behaviour of Ti–6Al–4V plasma source ion implanted with nitrogen then DLC-coated in an acetylene plus hydrogen-glow discharge (bias voltage −10 to −30 kV) were investigated. The as-modified samples have a TiN/H:DLC multilayer architecture (coating resistivity 1.6×10⁹ to 2.4×10¹¹ Ω/cm) and exhibit higher hardness, especially at low loads or plastic penetrations in the order of deposition bias voltage −10, −20 and −30 kV. At a lower contact load (1 N) and higher sliding speed (0.05 m/s), frictional properties in most cases improved, as did wear properties. At a higher contact load (5 N) and lower sliding speed (0.04 m/s), friction showed almost no improvement, and wear properties deteriorated. When the material of the counterbody was then changed from AISI 52100 to Ti–6Al–4V modified as the disc (contact load 5 N unchanged, sliding speed decreased), the friction coefficient decreased (but showed no improvement compared with the unmodified sample), while wear properties deteriorated further, and wear was changed from just the disc to both disc and ball, abrasive and adhesive dominated. Transfer films, mainly made up of wear debris transferred from the disc wear surfaces, were formed on the wear scars of the counterbodies. The deterioration of wear properties of the modified samples at the higher contact load is considered to be caused by the “thin ice” effect.     

Effect of dissimilar mating materials and contact force on fretting fatigue behavior of Ti–6Al–4V

Fretting fatigue behavior of a titanium alloy, Ti–6Al–4V, in contact with two pad materials having quite differing values of hardness and elastic modulus (aluminum alloy 2024 and Inconel 718) using “cylinder-on-flat” configuration was investigated at different applied stress levels and contact forces. Applied contact forces for both pad materials were selected to provide two Hertzian peak pressures of 292 and 441 MPa. Finite element analyses of all tests were also conducted which showed that an increase in contact force resulted in a smaller relative slip amplitude and a larger width of stick zone. These two factors, along with the lower coefficient of friction during fretting, resulted in less fretting damage on the contact surface of specimen subjected to higher contact force relative to that at lower contact force regardless of the hardness difference of mating materials. Also, an increase in hardness resulted in greater fretting damage on the contact surface of specimens only at higher contact force. Further, the fretting fatigue life decreased with an increase of applied contact force at higher applied effective stress, while it increased at lower applied effective stress with both pad materials. These observations suggest that there is complex interaction among hardness difference between mating surfaces, relative slip amplitude, and stress state in the contact region during fretting fatigue of dissimilar materials.     

Study of thin surfactant films under shear using the tribological surface force apparatus

Static and dynamic behaviour of thin surfactant films in aqueous solution of hexadecyltrimethylammonium salicylate (C16TASal) were investigated using the tribological surface force apparatus. Normal force measurements show that 0.15 mM C16TASal builds up an innermost film of approximately 8–11 Å thickness at each mica surface, indicating that the surfactant adsorbs in a flat conformation. Furthermore, the height of the force barrier at approximately 60Å is low (ca 2 mN/m) indicating that the second adsorbed layer is easily pushed out. Addition of salicylate salt to 0.15 mM C16TASal give rise to a more close packed structure, with a total thickness of 62–65 Å, indicative of a micellar or bilayer arrangement at the surfaces. Furthermore, the frequency dependence of the shear modulus was investigated both at close separation at the innermost force barrier and at larger separations (up to 300–400 Å). The visco-elastic measurements show that the elasticity modulus, G′, dominates over the loss modulus, G″, for all studied cases, indicative of a more solid-like than liquid-like film. Finally, it is shown that shear at high contact pressures induces new aggregate structures at the surface.     

Measurement of wear of carbon coated sliders using atomic force microscopy and Raman spectroscopy

Wear of carbon coated sub-ambient pressure “pico” sliders is investigated during sweep testing as a function of interference height, slider design and sliding distance using atomic force microscopy. The wear results from atomic force microscopy measurements are compared with wear measurements of the carbon overcoat using Raman spectroscopy. The effect of interference on wear and disk burnishing is studied using acoustic emission measurements and atomic force microscopy. The results show that wear of a slider is higher for larger interference height and higher stiffness of the air-bearing.     

Erosion–corrosion of engineering steels—Can it be managed by use of chemicals?

One significant contributory factor in the degradation of both pipelines and downhole tubulars in the oil and gas industry is erosion–corrosion. An erosion–corrosion investigation was carried out with three different steels—carbon steel, martensitic stainless steel and superduplex stainless steel. The materials were chosen to represent “active” and “passive” corrosion materials and are the same materials used in completions. Tests were carried out under three different regimes spanning a range of fluid velocities to simulate the severity of the mechanical erosion effect. A commercial corrosion inhibitor was used to investigate the inhibitor ability to reduce damage due to erosion–corrosion. In each of the conditions, pure corrosion and combined erosion–corrosion were studied by electrochemical and gravimetric techniques. The experiments were conducted using a jet impingement rig capable of producing jet velocities up to 20 m/s in a CO₂-saturated environment with sand. Erosion–corrosion mechanisms were determined from microstructural studies by SEM and inhibitor adsorption tests. The paper shows that the inhibitor effectively reduced erosion–corrosion damage for carbon steel; it was only in severe erosion–corrosion conditions that inhibitor has any noticeable effect for martensitic stainless steel and there were no conditions where the inhibitor offered a benefit for the superduplex stainless steel.     

Dynamics of transient events at the head/disk interface

Slider/disk contacts of nano and pico sliders are investigated using an acoustic emission sensor and a high bandwidth laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV). The following cases are studied: (a) influence of scratch impact on the airbearing stiffness; (b) influence of lubricant thickness on slider dynamics for single bump impacts; (c) influence of lubricant thickness on slider vertical stick–slip vibrations; (d) dynamics of take-off and landing. Linear time frequency analysis is applied to study simultaneously the impact response of the airbearing and the slider torsional and bending modes. The contact dynamics of single bump impacts is examined as a function of disk velocity and lubricant thickness. Increased slider vibrations are found for thick lubricant films both for sliding contacts as well as for single bump impacts. During the transition from sliding to flying a change of the bending mode frequency is observed.     

Theoretical investigation on the dimple occurrence in the thermal EHL of simple sliding steel–glass circular contacts

The conical depression (surface dimple) phenomena observed by Kaneta et al. (Kaneta M, Nishikawa H, Kameishi K, Sakai T. Effects of elastic moduli of contact surfaces in elastohydrodynamic lubrication. ASME J. Tribol. 1992;114:75–80; Kaneta M, Nishikawa H, Kanada T, Matsuda K. Abnormal phenomena appearing in EHL contacts. ASME J. Tribol. 1996;118:886–892.) in optical interferometry experiments are simulated numerically by a complete solution to the simple sliding circular contact thermal elastohydrodynamic lubrication (TEHL) problem. Good agreement is displayed between the theoretical and experimental results. This agreement is explained by the “temperature–viscosity wedge” mechanism, which was first proposed by Cameron (Cameron A. Hydrodynamic lubrication of rotating discs in pure sliding, a new type of oil film formation. J. Inst. Petrol 1951;37:471.). Effects of the viscosity–pressure coefficient, the ambient viscosity, and the entrainment velocity on the behavior of the surface dimples are discussed.     

Friction coefficient of soft contact lenses: measurements and modeling

Tribological conditions for contact lenses have very low contact pressures in the range 3–5 kPa and sliding speeds around 12 cm/s. Using a microtribometer a series of experiments was run on commercially available contact lenses made from Etafilcon-A. These tests were run using 10–50 mN of normal load at speeds from 63 to 6280 m/s using a 1-mm radius glass sphere as a pin. The resulting contact pressures are believed to be nearly an order of magnitude larger than the targeted 3–5 kPa. It is hypothesized that the viscoelastic nature of the hydrogel, viscous shearing of the packaging solution, and interfacial shear between the glass sphere and the contact lens all contribute to the friction forces. A model that includes all three of these contributors is developed and compared to the experimental data. The experimental friction coefficients vary from = 0.025 to 0.075. The calculated fluid filmthicknesses were between 1 and 30 nm. The average surface roughness of the lens and the glass sphere are R_a=15 nm and R_a=8 nm, respectively, suggesting that the contact is not in full elastohydrodynamic lubrication. Finally, the largest contributors to the friction force in these experiments were found to be viscous dissipation within the hydrogel and interfacial shear within the contact zone.     

The Effect of Slider Texture on the Tribology of Near Contact Recording Sliders

Island-type texture was fabricated on two types of pico-sliders using plasma etching and ion beam etching. Laser–Doppler interferometry was used to investigate the vibrations of textured and untextured pico-sliders in near-contact situations. Lubricant depletion on the disk surface was investigated in the slider wear tracks using scanning ellipsometry (Surface Reflectance Analyzer (SRA)). The results show that slider in-plane and out-of-plane vibrations were reduced as a consequence of the texture on the slider surface. In addition, lubricant depletion on the disk surface was found to be less severe for textured sliders than for untextured sliders at flying heights below 10 nm.     

Damage evolution in creep bulging of thin sheet metal

The creeping motion of thin sheet metal, damaged by artificial cavities is observed in bulging tests and simulated ‘semi’-analytically. The sheet metal satisfies Norton’s Law for secondary creep and is subjected to a bi-directional stretch. The stretch is produced by creep bulging through elliptical dies with the virtue of sustaining nearly uniform background stress ratio for each aspect ratio of the die axes. In order to reach large deformations with significant shape evolution of the cavities, the tests were conducted at superplastic conditions. The sheet is double layered (only one layer is cavitated) made of Tin–Lead (50–50 Pb–Sn). The measured damage growth is compared to an approximate simulation. The simulation of the damage evolution, throughout its time history, makes repeated use of a so-called “Green-function solution” for the motion of a single isolated cavity in an infinite viscoplastic continuum. The solution is modified from Muskhelishvili’s elastic solution by replacing the elastic shear modulus by a “viscous-like” variable (“plastic shear modulus”) which depends (non-linearly) on the evolved average strain-rate. Similarly, the stresses in the ligaments between cavities were averaged to approximate the local stress concentrations. Due emphasis is given to the rotation of each elliptical cavity, beside its expansion (contraction) and elongation.     

New cylinder liner surfaces for low oil consumption

Anticipated emission legislation and reduced fuel consumption are the main driving forces when developing new engines. Optimization of the active surfaces in the piston system is one possible way to meet the above demands. In this study the effects of surface topography and texture direction of the ring/liner contact on oil film thickness and friction were simulated and experimentally tested. “Low wear” results from the experimental wear tests with “glide honed” smooth liner surfaces supported the “low friction” simulation results. In addition a new wear volume sensitive surface roughness parameter, R_ktot, based on the Abbot–Firestone bearing area curve was introduced.     

Effects of ultra-thin liquid lubricant films on contact slider dynamics in hard-disk drives

This paper describes the effects of ultra-thin liquid lubricant films on contact slider dynamics in hard-disk drives. In the experiments, the contact slider dynamics as well as ultra-thin liquid lubricants behavior are investigated using three types of lubricants, which have different end-groups and molecular weight as a function of lubricant film thickness. The dynamics of a contact slider is mainly monitored using acoustic emission (AE). The disks are also examined with a scanning micro-ellipsometer before and after contact slider experiments. It is found that the lubricant film thickness instability occurs as a result of slider–disk contacts, when the lubricant film thickness is thicker than one monolayer. Their unstable lubricant behavior depends on the chemical structure of functional end-groups and molecular weight. In addition, it is also found that the AE RMS values, which indicate the contact slider dynamics, are almost same, independent of the end-groups and molecular weight for the lubricants, when the lubricant film thickness is approximately one monolayer. The molecular weight, however, affects the contact slider dynamics, when the lubricant film thickness is less than one monolayer. In other words, the AE RMS values increase remarkably as the molecular weight for the lubricant increases. When the lubricant film thickness is more than one monolayer, the AE RMS values decrease because of the effect of mobile lubricant layer, while the lubricant instability affects the contact slider dynamics. Therefore, it may be concluded that the lubricant film thickness should be designed to be approximately one monolayer thickness region in order to achieve contact recording for future head–disk interface.     

Study on practical application of a new seismic damper using a Zn–Al alloy with a nanocrystalline microstructure

Superplastic Zn–Al alloy has some excellent properties needed for a seismic damper, such as high ductility, low work hardening and no harmful metal to human health. In addition, superplastic materials with ultra-fined grains exhibit the high-strain-rate superplasticity and/or low-temperature superplasticity. Some investigations were carried out for nano-sized Zn–Al alloy in order to develop a high-performance seismic damper capable of replacing conventional dampers, such as low-yield-point steel. First, the design for appropriate structure as a damping device using superplastic Zn–Al alloy was discussed by FEM analysis. Secondly, a bulk Zn–Al alloy with nanocrystalline microstructure was manufactured by thermo-mechanical controlling process (TMCP) technology, and the tensile properties of this alloy were compared with that of low-yield-point steel. Then, the full-size cyclic testing of the damping device was carried out in order to evaluate the response for earthquake. As a result, an ecological and high performance seismic damper, the so-called “maintenance-free seismic damper”, has been successfully developed and put into actual use in a high-rise building.     

Influence of load and elastic properties on the rolling and sliding friction of lubricated compliant contacts

Lubricated “soft” contacts, where one or both contacting solids have a low elastic modulus, are present in many practical engineering and biological applications including windscreen wipers, wet tyres, elastomeric seals, contact lenses and the tongue/palate system. In such contacts, the prevailing lubrication mode is “isoviscous EHL” (elastohydrodynamic lubrication). Unlike in steel–steel contacts, rolling friction can be considerable and this originates in part from the viscoelastic properties of the compliant surfaces.In this paper the influence on friction of both applied load and the elastic properties of the solids is studied using a mini traction machine. In this machine, the rolling and sliding friction can be separately determined. The viscoelastic properties of the polymers employed are measured using a dynamic mechanical analysis apparatus. The measured friction is compared to theoretical models for soft EHL and the viscoelastic energy losses arising from the contact deformation. Consideration of the frequency dependence of the substrate viscoelasticity enables reasonably accurate predictions of the rolling friction coefficient, especially within the mixed and boundary lubrication regimes.     

Effects of striated texturing on pivoted gas sliders

The paper is a study of effects of striated, transversely oriented texturing on pivoted gas lubricated sliders. Unlike the author's recent works on texturing, in the present case the complete slider surface is textured. To simplify the analysis, the high bearing number approximation has been used to calculate load carrying capacity and stiffness for just a few macro-geometries. The averaging operators derived for incompressible fluids are also valid for gases [Tønder K. Theory of effects of striated roughness on gas lubrication. In: Proceedings of the JSLE international tribology conference, Tokyo, Japan; 1985. p. 761–6; Weissner S, Tønder K, Talke FE. Surface roughness effects in compressible lubrication. In: Proceedings of the Austrib’98 international tribology conference, Brisbane, Australia; 1998. p. 111–22.]. These have been used here. It is seen that texture in the form of longitudinal furrows is not beneficial for very thin films, when the high bearing number approximation is acceptable. As in Ref. [Tønder K. A simplified assessment of the performance of differentially textured hard disk sliders. Tribol Int 2005;38(6/7):641–5], the study is limited to transverse grooves.The performance of pivoted textured sliders has been compared with that of more conventional designs. Plain textured geometries are found to have stiffness properties somewhat poorer than those of most current slider designs. However, they do possess realistic stiffnesses; this makes the concept of texturing standard slider surfaces rather appealing. It seems probable that texture may provide some damping.Finally, it is suggested that texturing liquid lubricated bearings may, under certain conditions, prevent bearing failure caused by bubble-induced compressibility of the lubricant.