Assessment of Broadband Shielding Effectiveness of Composite Panels for Protective Enclosures

The article investigates the shielding effectiveness (SE) of a metallic enclosure with a multilayer composite cover over a wide frequency range, from near-field magnetic shielding (1 Hz-1 MHz) to far-field electromagnetic shielding (4-14 GHz). Two enclosures are considered: a conductive enclosure made of aluminum and a magnetic enclosure made of steel. The multilayer composite is a trilayer combining a thin conductive layer of graphene and a thin magnetic layer of a Fe-Ni alloy on either side of a fiberglass plate. To determine the SE of these enclosures in both low-frequency and high-frequency approaches, two experimental setups and two numerical models are developed. The use of the composite cover, instead of the metallic one, gives a similar level of SE in the far-field and a higher specific SE (i.e., SE divided by the material density) in the near-field from 1 Hz to 2 kHz. Such quantitative analysis is the first step to designing practical enclosures entirely covered with composite panels to face electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) constraints in embedded systems.

Automated summary

The article investigates the shielding effectiveness of a metallic enclosure with a multilayer composite cover over a wide frequency range. The use of the composite cover provides similar shielding effectiveness in the far-field and higher specific shielding effectiveness in the near-field.