Reduction of windage loss of an optical disk drive utilizing air-flow analysis and response surface methodology

Abstract

This research analyzes the source of the power consumption in an optical disk drive (ODD) of a laptop computer. It shows that approximately 70 % of electrical input power is dissipated through the windage loss in the ODD. The windage loss is calculated by simulating the air flow around the rotating disk, and the simulated windage loss is verified by comparing with the measured one. It investigates the windage loss according to the variation of the upper and lower gaps between the rotating disk and case, and the optimal upper and lower gaps are determined by using the response surface methodology to reduce the windage loss. Finally, it shows experimentally that the proposed optimal model reduces total power consumption by 6.5 %.