An approximate slope diffraction coefficient for material plate junctions

An approximate slope diffraction coefficient is developed to improve the approximate UTD solution for the junction between two material plates when the incident angle is close the grazing. The present development has been carried out for plate angles greater than 60/spl deg/ on the source side. However, the method can be extended to angles less than 60/spl deg/ in a similar fashion. The source can be located close to grazing incidence angles when the material is lossy enough to neglect the surface wave. A reasonable improvement over the approximate UTD solution for grazing incidence is obtained with addition of the approximate slope diffraction contribution.