Continuously wound fiber-reinforced disk drive actuator assembly

Abstract

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.