Characterization of head saturation

A detailed analysis of saturation in magnetic recording heads is given. One of the main goals of the study is to present saturation results in a simplified form, suitable for use in recording models. The saturated fields are therefore characterized in terms of an effective gap and spacing, and the dependence of these effective quantities on different head parameters and geometries is discussed. These effective quantities become different from their linear values when the deep-gap field exceeds one half of the saturation magnetization of the head, but the changes are always relatively small (less than 10% of the gap length)