Design of modified shock isolators for the optical pickup in an ODD by analytical and experimental methods

Optical disk drives are subjected to many different types of shock environments. In particular, during harsh shipping conditions, extremely large impacts and amplified shock accelerations are transmitted to the optical pickup because of its relatively small mass, leading to the mechanical failure of the optical components. In this paper, an explicit finite element analysis was performed to improve the shock isolators. The analysis results were verified with a linear drop test. Based on the verified numerical model, the shapes of the shock isolators were modified via the design of experiments methodology, considering the maximum stress. The modified shock isolators were fabricated and tested under linear drop conditions. The shock isolation performance of the modified isolators was improved by 18 %.