Influence of the aspect ratio of magnetic metallic additives on the microwave absorbing performance

Abstract

This work aims to show the behavior of radar absorbing materials (RAM) based on magnetic metallic additives with different aspect ratios. For this, two materials, carbonyl iron, constituted of spherical iron particles, and carbon-steel filaments were used. These additives were characterized considering their morphological and structural features. X-ray diffraction analysis shows that the two additives have the same crystallographic structure, but their morphologies are quite different in micrometer scale. Epoxy resin/metallic additive composites using the neat additives and their mixtures were prepared. The electromagnetic characterization of the composites evaluated the permittivity, permeability and reflectivity behaviors in the frequency range of 8.2-12.4 GHz. The results show that the samples obtained with the mixture of the two additives resulted in composites with high complex parameters of permittivity and permeability. Better RAM performance is observed for samples based on metallic filaments and for more concentrated mixtures containing the two additives (values up to -14 dB or similar to 96% of attenuation). The influence of specimen-thickness on the RAM performance is also observed.