Aerodynamic effect on natural frequency and flutter instability in rotating optical disks

 Experimental studies on the aerodynamic coupling effect on natural frequencies and flutter instability of rotating disks are investigated in this paper. The experiments performed using a vacuum chamber and optical disks give two main results. One is that the aerodynamic effect by surrounding air reduces the natural frequencies and critical speeds of the vibration modes in pre-flutter regions. The other is that the natural frequency of the disk rotating at ambient atmospheric pressure is equal to that in vacuum at the flutter onset speed where the disk experiences aero-induced flutter. In post-flutter regions, the aerodynamic coupling between the disk and surrounding air increases the natural frequencies of the disk. Received: 17 June 2002/Accepted: 7 October 2002 The work was supported by Grant No. R11-1997-042-090001-0 of the Center for Information Storage Devices designated by the Korea Science & Engineering Foundation. Paper presented at the 13th Annual Symposium on Information Storage and Processing Systems, Santa Clara, CA, USA, 17–18 June, 2002