Dynamics of suspension-slider-air-bearing systems: experimental study

Experimental techniques are proposed to evaluate the dynamic properties of suspension-slider-air-bearing systems. The bump responses of the sliders and gimbal structures are measured. The modal parameters, such as frequencies, damping ratios, and mode shapes of the systems are obtained by using the proposed procedure. The techniques are applied to investigate the dynamic properties of three systems. It is found that they have quite different properties, and the suspensions (gimbal) significantly affect the dynamic properties of the air bearings. Some gimbal designs generate additional modes in the frequency band of the air-bearing resonance, or introduce additional stiffness and/or inertia constraints to the slider-air bearings. The results also show that the proposed techniques are robust for experimentally evaluating the dynamic properties of the suspension-slider-air-bearing systems.