9800482 Lin A GOALI award supports a collaborative study of the behavior of pico read/write heads in magnetic storage systems as they are in gliding contact with the moving disk. The project involves design and fabrication of micro-electromechanical force and strain sensors to monitor the contacts, development of a rigorous slider model and suitable algorithms that allow reconstruction of contact forces from experimental results, and the conduct of field tests for validation of the model and the algorithms. In this collaborative study, the University of Michigan will be primarily responsible for the sensor development, the University of Washington for development of model and algorithms, and Seagate Technology Corporation will help calibrate the sensors and conduct the field tests. ***
