A novel simulation of air∕liquid bearings based on lattice Boltzmann method

A novel three dimensional (3D) simulation tool based on lattice Boltzmann method (LBM), which is more efficient than the conventional computational fluid dynamics approach, was developed to analyze the head∕disk interface (HDI) dynamics. For handling general geometrical structures, Taylor series expansion and least squares based LBM was employed to simulate the flow conditions under a model slider. Truncated power-law and Bird–Carreau models were incorporated to capture the non-Newtonian fluid flow behavior of lubricant liquid film undergoing extremely high shear rates by modifying the relaxation time as a function of shear rate. After the benchmark study of two dimensional∕3D Poiseuille flows, pressure and shear profiles under the model slider were calculated for different constitutive relationships. The results indicate that our LBM techniques could be an attractive computational tool for next generation HDI design.