Characterization of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic for Microwave Circuit Design

This paper presents the extraction of the complex propagation constant from carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) transmission lines up to 5 GHz. A test-fixture is designed and fabricated to obtain the propagation constant using a line-line extraction method. Use of this method reduces the required number of fabricated transmission lines compared to calibration algorithms such as TRL. Comparison of the extracted propagation constant with simulation data indicates CFRP conductivity of 1.0 -1.5x10
⁴
S/m.