Patent Application
20120186925
Various embodiments of the present invention are generally directed to an apparatus and methods for reducing vibration of a drive while in a drive carrier.
In certain embodiments, an apparatus includes a drive carrier that has a damping material positioned between an inertia weight and the drive carrier. In certain embodiments, a method includes attaching a damping material to a drive carrier and attaching a mass to the damping material.
Drive carriers retain storage drives so that the carrier and drive can be inserted, for example, into a housing or bay in a storage rack for testing or operating the drive. Storage racks may be placed near other storage racks and may include, among other devices, cooling fans and multiple drives—each of which subject the storage rack and drives to vibrations, which can cause errors and/or performance throughput loss in the drives. Attempts to reduce vibration in drive carriers have not adequately addressed rotary and linear vibration mitigation. Moreover, previous techniques lacked the design flexibility and effectiveness associated with damping vibration by isolating inertia weights from drive carriers.
The carrier 100 includes a damping material 104 and an inertia weight 106. The damping material 104 may be positioned between the carrier 100 and the inertia weight 106. For example, the damping material 104 may be attached to the carrier 100, and the inertia weight 106 may be attached to the damping material 104. The damping material 104 and inertia weight 106 may be attached to the carrier 100 by any suitable means, including adhering or fastening the elements together.
The damping material 104 is positioned on the carrier 100 such that, when the carrier 100 is subjected to rotational and linear vibration, the damping material 104 is placed in shear between the inertia weight 106 and another surface—for example, the carrier 100 or another inertia weight. When the damping material 104 is subjected to shear movement, rotational and linear vibration is mitigated because the damping material 104 isolates the inertia weight 106 and converts the vibrational energy to thermal energy. The inertia weight 106 does not directly contact the carrier 100 and is therefore isolated from the carrier 100. Mitigating the vibrational energy may reduce the noise created by the drive 102, may reduce the energy required to operate the drive 102, and may reduce the number of storage drive errors thereby increasing throughput performance. In addition, the damper/mass combination may be modeled as a spring-mass-damper system, for example, by modifying a contact area between the damping material 104 and the inertia weight 106, which changes the effective stiffness of the damper/mass system.
In some exemplary embodiments, the position of the damper/mass combination 104 and 106 can be optimized for different applications. For example, the damping material 104 and inertia weight 106 may be placed at a corner of the drive where rotational vibration may be the greatest. Alternatively, the damper/mass combination 104 and 106 may be placed such that the center of mass of the carrier 100 is modified. The damper/mass combination 104 and 106 may be enclosed within the carrier 100 and therefore not visible.
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It is to be understood that even though numerous characteristics and advantages of various embodiments of the present invention have been set forth in the foregoing description, together with details of the structure and function of various embodiments of the invention, this detailed description is illustrative only, and changes may be made in detail, especially in matters of structure and arrangements of parts within the principles of the present invention to the full extent indicated by the broad general meaning of the terms in which the appended claims are expressed.
