2021 Virtual Undergraduate Research Symposium
2021 Virtual Undergraduate Research Symposium
Procedurally Generated Microwave Devices Compatible with Additive Manufacturing Methods
Procedurally Generated Microwave Devices Compatible with Additive Manufacturing Methods
PROJECT NUMBER: 45 | AUTHOR: Andrew McEntee, Electrical Engineering
MENTOR: Payam Nayeri, Electrical Engineering and Geoff Brennecka, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering
ABSTRACT
The primary goal of this research was to create and support the procedural generation of additively manufactured microwave devices. On the material side, the team focused on creating an infrastructure to 3D print Aluminum Oxide structures with a high dielectric constant and low tangential loss factor. The electrical engineering team worked in parallel with the materials team to develop a script that is capable of autonomously generating passive microwave topologies in a commercial CAD solver, namely Ansys HFSS’s modeling and simulation environment. Ultimately, we successfully created an IronPython script using Ansys’s scripting API that rapidly produces randomly populated waveguide filters and dielectric resonators. For either application, we also created an option for the generating perforated or post style geometries enabling the necessary flexibility for a variety of frequency bands and practical applications. Although the performance remains mostly untested and a physical model has not been manufactured yet, it establishes a robust framework that ensures theoretical compatibility with the existing additive manufacturing infrastructure while simultaneously enabling the future implementation of geometry optimizations and subsequent manufacturing.
PRESENTATION
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Andrew McEntee is an undergraduate Electrical Engineering student with a minor in Computer Engineering and is on track to graduate in May 2021. Over the past two semesters, he has been conducting interdisciplinary microwave research in a collaboration between the electrical and materials engineering departments. His research aimed to autonomously generate passive microwave devices that are natively compatible with additive manufacturing methods.
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