The electrical conductivities of steel and other candidate materials for shrouds in a beam-waveguide antenna system

Author

Otoshi, Tom Y. ; Franco, Manuel M.

Author_Institution

Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA

Volume

45

Issue

1

fYear

1996

fDate

2/1/1996 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

77

Lastpage

83

Abstract

This article presents the results of electrical conductivity measurements made at 8.420 GHz on samples of the structural steel material used to fabricate shrouds on a Deep Space Network (DSN) 34-m-diameter beam-waveguide (BWG) antenna. Test results show that the structural steel samples at this microwave frequency had effective conductivities that were about 50 times worse than published dc values and also 230 times worse than the measured conductivities of aluminum test samples. Conductivity data are also presented for other candidate materials that could be used to fabricate BWG shrouds. Of interest are the improvements or degradations that were observed after some of the metal test samples were surface treated, plated, or painted

Keywords

electrical conductivity measurement; microwave links; microwave measurement; space communication links; steel; waveguide antennas; 34 m; 8.420 GHz; ASTM A36 steel; Deep Space Network; NASA; X-band; aluminum test samples; anodisation; beam-waveguide antenna; conductivities; dc values; degradations; electrical conductivities; electrical conductivity measurements; measured conductivities; microwave frequency; painted samples; plated samples; shrouds; structural steel; surface treated samples; Antenna measurements; Building materials; Conducting materials; Conductivity measurement; Extraterrestrial measurements; Frequency measurement; Microwave frequencies; Microwave measurements; Steel; Testing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Instrumentation and Measurement, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9456

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/19.481315

Filename

481315