scholarly journals Accurate Measurement of the True Plane-Wave Shielding Effectiveness of Thick Polymer Composite Materials via Rectangular Waveguides

Polymers ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1603 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moučka ◽  
Goňa ◽  
Sedlačík

This paper presents a methodology for accurately gauging the true plane wave shielding effectiveness of composite polymer materials via rectangular waveguides. Since the wave propagation of the waveguides is not in the form of plane wave patterns, it is necessary to post-process the S-parameters for the measured data of the waveguide lines to obtain such patterns and ascertain the effectiveness of true plane wave shielding. The authors propose two different methods to achieve this. The first applies simple renormalization of S-parameters, where reference impedance is changed from the value for the waveguide to that for free space, which ensures good accuracy of shielding effectiveness with a small degree of discontinuity across the range of frequencies. The other relies on rigorous extraction of the composite materials’ effective permittivity and permeability ascertained from rectangular waveguides; afterward, plane wave shielding effectiveness is calculated analytically and gives very high accuracy. Both procedures assume the given samples are isotropic in character. We validated the accuracy of the methodologies by conducting tests on a set of synthetic samples of 2 mm thickness with unit permittivity and variable conductivity and on a dielectric material of known permittivity (FR4 laminate). The applicability of both methods was further proven by analyzing the isotropic composite materials, a process involving the use of iron particles embedded in a dielectric matrix. The synthetic samples and an FR4 material were tested to check the accuracy of the methods. Based on numerical studies and measurements, we concluded that materials with a shielding effectiveness of up to 25 dB could be measured at a maximum amplitude error of 1 dB to 3dB to a frequency of 18 GHz, depending on the relative permittivity of the material; hence, the first method was suitable for approximation purposes. For maximal accuracy, the second method typically demonstrated an amplitude error of below 0.5 dB to the same frequency across the entire range.

The main methods (pressing and winding) of the processing of hybrid polymer composites to obtain items were examined. Advantages and disadvantages of the methods were noted. Good combinations of different-module fibers (carbon, glass, boron, organic) in hybrid polymer materials are described, which allow one to prepare materials with high compression strength on the one hand, and to increase fracture energy of samples and impact toughness on the other hand.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. H. Park ◽  
J. Dana

Abstract Anisotropic composite materials have been extensively utilized in mechanical, automotive, aerospace and other engineering areas due to high strength-to-weight ratio, superb corrosion resistance, and exceptional thermal performance. As the use of composite materials increases, determination of material properties, mechanical analysis and failure of the structure become important for the design of composite structure. In particular, the fatigue failure is important to ensure that structures can survive in harsh environmental conditions. Despite technical advances, fatigue failure and the monitoring and prediction of component life remain major problems. In general, cyclic loadings cause the accumulation of micro-damage in the structure and material properties degrade as the number of loading cycles increases. Repeated subfailure loading cycles cause eventual fatigue failure as the material strength and stiffness fall below the applied stress level. Hence, the stiffness degradation measurement can be a good indication for damage evaluation. The elastic characterization of composite material using mechanical testing, however, is complex, destructive, and not all the elastic constants can be determined. In this work, an in-situ method to non-destructively determine the elastic constants will be studied based on the time of flight measurement of ultrasonic waves. This method will be validated on an isotropic metal sheet and a transversely isotropic composite plate.


2021 ◽  
pp. 132-143
Author(s):  
L. A Saraev

The paper proposes a mathematical model aimed at calculating the effective elastic moduli of a micro-inhomogeneous two-component isotropic composite material, which components are connected randomly depending on the level of their relative volumetric contents. A stochastic equation is formulated for the connectivity parameter of the constituent components, according to which, with an increase in the volumetric content of the filler, individual inclusions build the structures of the matrix mixture in the form of interpenetrating frameworks, and then turn into a new binding matrix with individual inclusions from the material of the rest of the old matrix. The algorithm for the numerical solution of this stochastic differential equation is constructed in accordance with the Euler-Maruyama method. For each implementation of this algorithm, the corresponding stochastic trajectories are constructed for the random connectivity function of the constituent components of the composite material. A variant of the method aimed at calculating the mathematical expectation of a random connectivity function of the constituent components has been developed and the corresponding differential equation has been obtained for it. It is shown that the numerical solution of this equation and the average value of the production factor function calculated for all realizations of stochastic trajectories give close numerical values. New macroscopic constitutive relations are found for microinhomogeneous materials with a variable microstructure and their effective elastic moduli are calculated. It is noted that the formulas for these effective elastic moduli generalize the known results for isotropic composite materials. The values of the effective elastic moduli, constructed according to the expressions obtained in the paper, lie within the Khashin-Shtrikman range for the lower and upper bounds of the effective elastic moduli of the composite materials. The numerical analysis of the developed models showed a good agreement with the known experimental data.


1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Schmitt ◽  
C. Paulick ◽  
Y. Bour ◽  
F. X. Royer

Abstract The control of the quality of mixture based on very short carbon fibers and epoxyde resins leads to suitable mixture for molding of complex geometries. A gain in fluidity is obtained if the suspensions are treated by ultrasounds and simultaneously stirred under vacuum. Addition in a very small ratio of microbubbles in the mixture allows to obtain a viscosity less than those of the matrix alone. For many polymer materials the gain of fluidity can be of 20 to 25% with size and concentration of the microspheres thoroughly chosen. A certain number of new resins is developped to elaborate composite materials with specific mechanical properties close to standard aluminium. Tensile test an ultimate stress are used to quantify the improvements of the mechanical properties. Fillers concentrations up to 30 % are obtained.


Author(s):  
Mehran Tehrani ◽  
Ayoub Y. Boroujeni ◽  
Majid Manteghi ◽  
Zhixian Zhou ◽  
Marwan Al-Haik

Electromagnetic (EM) waves, such as electronic noise and radio frequency interference can be regarded as an invisible electronic pollution which justifies a very active quest for effective electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding materials. Highly conductive materials of adequate thickness are the primary solutions to shield against EMI. Equipment cases and basic structure of space aircraft and launch vehicles have traditionally been made of aluminum, steel and other electrically conductive metals. However, in recent years composite materials have been used for electronic equipment manufacturing because of their lightweight, high strength, and ease of fabrication. Despite these benefits, composite materials are not as electrically conductive as traditional metals, especially in terms of electrical grounding purposes and shielding. Therefore, extra effort must be taken to resolve these shortcomings. The present work demonstrates a study on developing hybrid composites based on fiberglass with surface grown carbon nanotubes (CNTs) for EMI applications. The choice of fiberglass is primarily because it naturally possesses poor electrical conductivity, hence growing CNTs over glass fiber surface can significantly improve the conductivity. The fabrics were sputter-coated with a thin layer of SiO2 thermal barrier prior to growing of CNTs. The CNTs were grown on the surface of woven fiberglass fabrics utilizing a relatively low temperature technique. Raw fiberglass fabric, SiO2 coated fabric, and SiO2 coated fabric which was subjected to the identical heat treatment as the samples with CNTs were also prepared. Two-layers composite specimens based on different surface treated fiberglass fabrics were fabricated and their EMI shielding effectiveness (SE) was measured. The EMI SE of the hybrid CNT-fiberglass composites was shown to be 5–10 times of the reference samples. However, the tensile mechanical properties of the composites based on the different above mentioned fibers revealed significant degradation due to the elevated CNT growth temperature and the addition of coating layer and CNTs. To further probe the structure of the hybrid composites and the inter-connectivity of the CNTs from one interface to another, sets of 20-layers composites based on different surface treated fabrics were also fabricated and characterized.


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