Shielding Performance of Composite Materials Used in Air Vehicles

Abstract

The metal skin at air vehicles provide an important shielding effectiveness against the effects of high amplitude electromagnetic waves. In recent years, the composite materials with the advantages such as being lighter, causing lower fuel consumption, are used as a replacement of metals. In this paper, electromagnetic shielding performance of composite materials in air vehicle manufacturing industry is investigated. A panel model is used to obtain the shielding performance of these composite materials. Due to the geometrical similarity of air vehicles with a cylinder, a cylindrical shell model is also considered. Analytical calculations for the interaction of an electromagnetic pulse(EMP) with composite materials are carried out for both panel and cylindrical models. Also, the panel and cylindrical models are constructed via Computer Software Technology(CST) program and analytical and simulation results are compared. There is a good agreement with the results.