Simulation of thermal flying height control slider with built-in contact sensor

This work investigates the piezoelectric contact sensor in the thermal flying height control (TFC) slider. A finite element model is built for the thermal flying height control slider with a piezoelectric contact sensor, which is used to detect the contact between the slider and disk. A constant force is applied at the maximum thermal protrusion point of air bearing surface. The simulation results show that the ZnO sensor with shear-mode is more sensitive to contact force than that with transverse-mode. The sensitivity of contact sensor can be increased by reducing the cross-sectional area of sensor, increasing the thickness of sensor, and choosing a short distance of sensor to air bearing surface. In addition, the thermal-stress effects from TFC heater on contact sensor are significantly large and the amplitude of thermal-stress inducing output voltage is orders larger than that induced by contact force. However, by optimizing the distance of sensor to ABS, it is possible to eliminate the thermal-stress effects. Finally, the response time of thermal-stress induced electrical voltage of contact sensor is about 0.3 ms.