Study of Head-Tape Interaction in High Speed Rotating Head Recording

The steady state tape dynamics resulting from the interaction of a high speed rotating head and a flexible recording tape are formulated within the framework of linear shell theory. Tape displacements in the area above the head are coupled with the solution to the Reynolds equation in order to calculate the film thickness (flying height) between head and tape. Simulated results for spherical heads are compared to observed behavior on experimental systems.