Abstract
This paper presents an electromagnetic characterization of aircraft composite materials, as well as numerical and experimental analyses of its effects on the antenna performance. Two uncalibrated S-parameters characterization methods have been applied for retrieving the complex electrical permittivity in the L- and C-band, namely: Air-region method and Sample-shifted method. Dielectric constants of 4.6 and 1.84 and loss tangent of 2.0x10 -2 and 6.1x10 -2 have been obtained for fiberglass and honeycomb composite materials, respectively. A 3.0-meters prototype of an Embraer light jet aircraft dorsal fin was fabricated and used in the experiments in a semi-anechoic chamber in order to evaluate the impact of installing aeronautical VHF and L-band antennas on a fuselage made of composite materials.
Highlights
Electromagnetic characterization of the aircraft structures is an important part of the computeraided engineering simulations, since composite materials are extensively used in aeronautical applications
Fiberglass composite (FGC) material is a dielectric material commonly used in aircraft structures and its dielectric constant and loss tangent knowledge is important and recommended for antenna integration on aircraft
Two different uncalibrated S-parameters methods have been efficiently applied to predict the electromagnetic properties of composite materials, typically used in aircraft structures, namely fiberglass and honeycomb
Summary
Electromagnetic characterization of the aircraft structures is an important part of the computeraided engineering simulations, since composite materials are extensively used in aeronautical applications. For this reason, an accurate definition of the materials electromagnetic properties [1], especially non-metallic composite materials, becomes essential to achieve high reliability in the numerical analysis, which contributes considerably to the aircraft development. The composite material could impact on the antenna performance and, change its electromagnetic properties such as impedance matching, operational bandwidth, radiation pattern, gain and so on. This work presents an electromagnetic characterization of fiberglass and honeycomb composite materials used in airframe structures.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
