awg16 current

AWG 16 (.050" in diameter), is used to make an inductor of 100nH, to be used in a lumped elements banpass filter (Fc=450 MHz, IL=.40 dB)

Can it handle 75w Watts averafge/ 200W peak of RF power?

Krytar

I think you are ok.

At LOW frequency, the fusing current of #16 copper wire is 117 amps. And normal house wiring situations often size #16 wire for 10 amp circuits at 115 vac.

Now, at 12 GHz, there is something called skin effect. The electrons carrying the current do not go all the way into a piece of metal, but stay on the surface. This is called skin effect. The skin effect for copper is δ = 0.66/√f = 0.66 / √(12*10^9) = 6 x 10^-7 meters or 24 mils.

The diameter of #16 wire is 50.8 mils, so the RF current goes completely thru the wire, as its radius is only around one skin depth. So you do not have to derate the wire much at all, since the RF current is pretty uniform withradial depth in the conductor.

So you should be able to also handle 10 amps rms RF with no heating effect, and 117 amps without fusing.

Assuming 50 ohm cable, the RF current will be P=V*I = (I*Zo)*I, so I=√(P/Zo)=√(75/50) = 1.22 amps. So you are very safe. Even if you short circuited one end of the line, the maximum current due to the resulting standing wave would only be 2.44 amps--well within your handling capability.