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Abstract

The wear rate of modern heads is on the order of 100 nm per million meters of tape in the start-stop mode; the wear rate is about half in the streaming mode of operation. The life expectancy of a head is 3000 to 4000 hours equivalent to about 3 years of use with less than 1% failure rate (Bhushan, 1985). This wear rate is extremely small and difficult to measure. Consequently, there is a need for an accelerated test for determining the relative abrasivity of tapes (i.e., head wear resulting from abrasivity of different tapes) and resistance to wear of various head materials and head contours. Any change in the head contour affects its flying characteristics.

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© 1996 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.

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Bhushan, B. (1996). Measurement Techniques of Head and Medium Wear. In: Tribology and Mechanics of Magnetic Storage Devices. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2364-1_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2364-1_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-7517-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-2364-1

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