A W-band waveguide fabricated using selective laser melting

The use of the selective laser melting (SLM) rapid manufacturing technique for the fabrication of waveguide components is evaluated.The device under test (DUT) is a 50 mm long UG-387 flanged WR-10 waveguide. It is made of the Ti-6Al-4V alloy, which has a resistivity of 0.000178 Ω cm. The measured insertion loss of the DUT is 30.4 dB/m at 94 GHz. The insertion loss is in part due to the root mean square (RMS) surface roughness, which is 1.71 to 2.08 μm on the outside, after abrasive blasting and chemical polishing. The DUT is benchmarked against a 50 mm long Agilent W11644A WR-10 standard thru section. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 54:2572–2575, 2012; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.27121