Optimizing Material and Shape of 3D-Printed Waveguide Terminations

This paper investigates the impact of shape and material (Ice9, PEKK-ESD, and PEEK-ESD) on the performance of waveguide terminations, with the goal of designing Ku-band (10.7-13.75 GHz) terminations that can handle high power levels while maintaining an absorption level above 20 dB. Simulations using CST examined how shape and material properties affect absorption and power loss density (PLD). After performance comparisons, the simple and dual linear wedges, along with the tetrahedral wedges, were selected for 3D printing and experimental validation based on their compliance with the required specifications. The simulated and measured reflection coefficients for the simple and dual linear wedges showed strong agreement, although the measured reflection values were slightly higher. The tetrahedral exponential wedge underperformed, and difficulties in handling it led in the choice of the simpler designs. The relationship between reflected power (<tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathrm{P}_{\mathrm{r}}$</tex>) and incident power <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\left(P_{\text{in}}\right)$</tex> indicates that the dual wedge load has superior power handling capability compared to the simple wedge load.