Thin and lightweight radar-absorbing structure containing glass fabric coated with silver by sputtering

Abstract

In this paper, a new radar-absorbing structure produced by electrical modification of glass fabric via the silver-sputtering coating technique is proposed. Although conventional radar absorbers are fabricated using a conductive carbon nanomaterial, such fabricated absorbers have many limitations in their electrical and mechanical performance. A thin and lightweight silver-coated glass-fabric microwaveabsorbing structure (with a thickness of 1.82, 1.84 and 1.95 mm, respectively) having good microwave-absorbing performance in the X-band (8.2-12.4G Hz) was designed and fabricated without dispersing conductive carbon nanomaterials in the resin matrix. The morphology, element composition and phase identification of silver-coated glass fabrics were examined by SEM, EDS and XRD, respectively. In addition, interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) tests were conducted according to ASTM D 2344 to evaluate the mechanical performance of the proposed absorbers. Additionally, to design a thin broadband absorber using the silver-coated glass fabric, the absorbing performance of the proposed absorbers were analyzed from the C-band to the Ku-band (4-18G Hz), and the proposed broadband absorber showed excellent performance in the target frequency range. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.