Title: Particle contamination in turbulent flow within a Hard Disk Drive enclosure

Authors: S. Ali, M. Damodaran

Addresses: Department of Mathematics and Science, Singapore Polytechnic, 500 Dover Road, 139651 Singapore. ' School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, 639798 Singapore

Abstract: A proposed aerosol model, that uses an Eulerian frame of reference, is used in this paper to study particle flow and interactions in transient flow conditions within the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) enclosure in view of the implications of sub-micron airborne contamination inside these enclosures. The effects of particle collision due to Brownian motion and turbulence on particle size and concentration are studied in this paper for sub-micron alumina particles. The evolution of particle transport and concentration in sensitive regions inside the enclosure are also investigated to understand the impact of localised changes in the airflow characteristics on the particles.

Keywords: aerosol dynamics; turbulence; hard disk drives; HDD failure; particle contamination; turbulent flow; particle flow; transient flow; Brownian motion; dynamic modelling.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2008.019963

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2008 Vol.8 No.6, pp.351 - 361

Published online: 18 Aug 2008 *

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