Patent attributes
A piezoelectric actuated suspension with passive damping is disclosed for precision positioning of hard disk drive while reducing undesired shock vibrations. Along the longitudinal axis of an etched suspension, two piezoelectric actuators dispose near the base plate to provide a push-pull motion. The actuators have two main portions. The first portion is piezoelectric elements to provide active positioning. The second portion is viscoelastic damping layers underneath the piezoelectric elements for passive damping. The complementary parts such as stiff edge elements and optional soft boundary covers are used to enhance the actuating abilities of the actuators and prevent any contaminants of the viscoelastic layers from going into the clean sealed chamber of the hard disk drive, respectively. The present invention further relates to a dual-stage servo system in a hard disk drive for fine positioning of the read/write head and better shock resistance via the piezoelectric actuated suspension with passive damping.
