Abstract
Disposal of fly ash is a serious operational constraint and an environmental health hazard. This paper proposes a cost-effective, novel way of using fly ash for high frequency electronic applications. The primary substrate considered here is natural rubber which is a polymer-matrix composite. The effect of fly ash on the microwave shielding properties of natural rubber has been studied. Microwave shielding effectiveness (SE) for X band has been premeditated to predict the electrical properties of the fly ash-rubber composites. The shielding effectiveness of the varying filler concentrations in rubber composites are calculated by valuing the insertion loss of the signal when the sample is placed along the signal path at the X Band frequency range, 8GHz-12GHz in free space. Conductivity of the composites was found using the four-point probe method. The shielding effectiveness and the volume resistivity of rubber were found to change with different filler loadings with 0.20% of filler loading showing the maximum absolute SE of 3.605dB and an average conductivity of 0.707S/m respectively. The results encourage utilization of these composites for low profile microwave shielding applications.
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