Experimental Estimation of Shielding Effectiveness of Composite Materials by Use of Ultra Wideband Electromagnetic Pulses

A wide set of shielding materials is used for protection of electronic systems and their critical components against the impact of Ultra Wideband Electromagnetic Pulses (UWB EMP). Widely known protection solutions are materials with polymer metalized films, the needle-punched and felt fabrics with conductive fillers, materials with ferromagnetic fillers, fabrics impregnated by electrolyte solutions such as regular water, NaCl and CaCl2 water solutions. In this paper, a technique for express in-situ measurement of UWB EMP shielding effectiveness of composite materials is developed. The shielding effectiveness of materials with complex structure is tested in framework of the developed technique by the use of Test System providing the generation of EMP with duration of 242±24 ps (at half of maximum) and rise time of 139±14 ps. The obtained value of shielding effectiveness for the EMP with the noted parameters is 15.5 dB for four layers of the needle-punched material with carbon additives impregnated by electrolyte solution, 13.9 dB for the two layers of felt fabric material with a layer of polymer metalized film, and about 12.5 dB for material with the metalized films.