Binary mixture rule for predicting the dielectric properties of unidirectional E-glass/epoxy composite

Since the electromagnetic properties of fiber reinforced polymeric composite can be tailored effectively by adjusting its composition, the polymeric composite is a plausible material for fabricating the radar absorbing structures (RAS) of desired performance. In order to design the effective electromagnetic wave (EM) absorber with the fiber reinforced polymeric composite, the electromagnetic characteristics of its constituents are required in the target frequency band with respect to the content of each component of composite. In this study, the dielectric characteristics of unidirectional E-glass fiber reinforced epoxy composites were tested with the free space method, from which theoretical models and mixture equations for estimating its dielectric constant were proposed with respect to the fiber volume fractions. From the investigation, it was found that the suggested binary mixture rules agreed pretty well with the experimental results. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.