International Business Machines Corporation

Gwendolyn Jones Chung

Walter Lloyd Prater

Stephen Arnold Olson

Robert Bruce Prime

Hoa-Binh Thi Tu

Ramamurthy Nagarajan

Dennis Frederick Ramos

Wayne Isami Imaino

Tim Raeburn Lincoln

A near net shape fiber composite actuator assembly that requires little to no secondary finishing operations such as cutting or machining of the fiber structure to form the periphery of the assembly. In one aspect of the present invention, fibers are continuously wound substantially continuously in a direction along the periphery of the actuator component. This results in fibers orientated generally in the longitudinal direction of the component, and in a direction along the periphery of the matrix of the component, with fibers bending around all large radii to provide fiber continuity around the component's perimeter. Actuator positioner arms can be made of continuous fiber windings. An E-block can be made by stacking actuator arm components that are individually formed by continuous fiber windings. A dual-purpose wound-form can be deployed to facilitate the winding process, which will become an integral part of the final actuator assembly structure. Certain preformed actuator components such as coils and pivot bearing are used as mandrels to facilitate fiber windings, which will become integrated into the final actuator assembly in the winding process. In another aspect of the present invention, at the end of the fiber winding process, the fiber wound actuator assembly is applied as a preform, and further combined with a metal or polymer matrix to complete an E-block having fiber-reinforced metal or polymer matrix.

Continuously wound fiber-reinforced disk drive actuator assembly

The present invention relates to a process for the formation of components for use in a disk drive having graded properties. Particularly, the invention provides a method for forming a metal matrix composite components having graded properties. The graded properties are achieved by, for example, locating differing amounts of reinforcement material in different portions of a component and/or locating different compositions of reinforcement material in different portions of a component. Silicon carbide particles, for example, provide a low density reinforcement to an aluminum metal matrix creating a metal matrix composite having greater strength stiffness and damping.

Semi-solid processing to form disk drive components

A method of forming an computer component having improved damping capability is described. The method comprises providing a die for forming an computer component, inserting a water soluble salt block having a desired hollowing form into the die, and injecting formable material such as die-castable or thixoformable material in fluid form into the die such that the fluid forms around the salt block and substantially covers the salt block. Once the formable material solidifies to form the computer component, the solid computer component is subjected to pressurized steam to dissolve the salt within the solid component, thus leaving a hollow core of the desired hollowing form. The salt block can have at least one which forms an outlet opening in the solid computer component. The computer component can be, for example, an computer arm or an E-block for a computer hard drive.

Method of forming a die-castable hollow core actuator arm with improved damping

An actuator E-block for a rotary data storage device has a number of solid flat arms and flat coil yokes. The arms and yokes are formed from a metal, metal-reinforced metal matrix composites (MMC), ceramic-reinforced MMCs, glasses, ceramics or ceramic composites having a low density metal matrix surrounding reinforcing particles of low density and high specific stiffness. The arms and yokes may be formed as inserts by inexpensive processes such as stamping, blanking or laser scribing. The arm and yoke inserts are placed in a mold and then overmolded with a metal or metal matrix composite E-block body using a thixotropic or semisolid forming process. After molding, these materials and processes form a cost effective, lightweight E-block with a near net shape and enhanced damping and stiffness.

Overmolding of actuator E-block by thixotropic or semisolid forging

An etched, lubricated swage ball for use in swaging a head gimbal assembly to an actuator arm in a magnetic disk drive, and a method for making the same. The present invention discloses a lubricating system for swage balls used in a disk drive system which is free from transferrable aluminum oxide, other hard materials or excess solid lubricant which could be deposited on the clean disk surface during operation. The swage balls are first pretreated by cleaning and then etching to remove residual alumina from the surface of the swage balls. The cleaned, etched swage balls are then lubricated in a fluorocarbon lubricating system, thereby producing an etched, lubricated swage ball which is cleaner than that found in the prior art.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Gwendolyn Jones Chung