Overcoat Wear and Dynamic Friction Study at the Head-Disk Interface

The dynamic friction and wear at the head and the disk interface is investigated with the motive of understanding the head overcoat wear process associated with physical contact between the head and the disk. In this work, the results from systematic experiments under overpush conditions are presented. Various regimes of head wear are identified based on the individual wear rate of the participating overcoat layers. A strain gauge based friction measurement is used to extract the friction coefficient and the adhering shear strength between the head and the disk.