Solution of the Rarefied Gas Lubrication Equation Using an Additive Correction Based Multigrid Control Volume Method

Abstract

The ever shortening product cycle for magnetic recording disk drives demands a fast and accurate numerical prediction of the slider’s flying characteristics during the design stage. A computationally efficient multigrid control volume method is developed in this paper for the solution of the very high bearing number and shaped rail air bearing problems. The control volume schemes for discretizing the Reynolds lubrication equation are based on various convection-diffusion formulations, while the solution of the resulting discretization equations is accelerated by an additive correction based multigrid method. A comparison study using the 50 percent tripad and Headway AAB sliders demonstrates a significant improvement in the solver’s performance as compared to the single-grid method.