Fabrication and analysis of 3D printed ABS-iron powder composites for radar absorption

Abstract Radar-absorbing materials (RAMs) were fabricated by fused deposition modeling (FDM) using ABS–iron powder composite filaments produced with a custom single-screw extruder. RAM plates and tensile specimens were printed to evaluate electromagnetic and mechanical performance under representative processing conditions. The fabrication route allowed control over material composition and printed geometry without requiring specialized equipment. Reflection losses were measured in the 8–12 GHz range using a vector network analyzer, while tensile tests on horizontally and vertically printed specimens were conducted to assess material strength and interlayer adhesion effects. The results confirmed the anisotropic mechanical behavior typical of FDM parts. For plain ABS, horizontal tensile strength reached approximately 0.77 × that of injection-molded ABS, whereas vertical strength decreased to about 0.45 × . With iron powder addition, vertical strength further decreased to approximately 0.18 × of the horizontal value at 50 wt.% iron content. Despite this reduction in mechanical performance, complex RAM geometries were fabricated with consistent print quality and electromagnetic absorption reaching 44 dB at 9.4 GHz. These findings highlight the potential of FDM-based processing for rapid prototyping and functional evaluation of radar-absorbing structures. Overall, the proposed workflow enables composition- and geometry-based tuning of the effective absorption frequency range using an accessible FDM-based manufacturing approach.