Surface Lubrication of Magnetic Tape

Abstract

IIT Research Institute has developed a technique that greatly increases the operating life of the magnetic tape media as well as that of the head. This is accomplished by the application of a very thin coating of an inert lubricant to the surface of the media. Tests have been performed with a variety of commercially available tapes and various head materials. Greater than 5 million passes of 3M 900 on a loop tester were achieved with no apparent effect on the tape. Without lubrication, the same tests achieved only 30,000 passes. Head wear was decreased by as much as a factor of ten where lubricated tape was used. This paper describes the technique and gives typical test results obtained by IITRI and others.