A Lightweight Flexible Microwave Absorber using 3-D Printed Honeycomb Structure

A three-dimensional (3-D) printed lightweight microwave absorber design is presented in this work. The geometry uses a perforated honeycomb made from Polylactic acid (PLA) material as the constituent dielectric, thus minimizing both the overall volume and weight of the structure. The unit cell geometry exhibits an absorption peak at 4.6 GHz with a peak absorptivity of 99.99%. The topology also shows polarization-insensitivity and angular stability. Further, the design has been investigated for planar as well as non-planar (cylindrical) surfaces, and its absorption performances are found satisfactory.