Carbon-fiber reinforcements for epoxy composites with electromagnetic radiation protection—prediction of electromagnetic shielding ability

Abstract The development of flexible air/water vapor permeable composites designed for shielding the electromagnetic field has received an increasing amount of attention in recent years. A great deal of the attendant research has dealt with the development and investigation of electromagnetic shielding (SE) composites with textile-based reinforcements. However, little attention has been paid to the simple prediction of their SE ability, especially in terms of industrial applications. In this study, we investigated the design and properties of carbon-fiber reinforcements for use in epoxy composites that provide SE protection. Here, we selected the Aksaca electrically conductive continuous carbon-fiber roving and prepared different reinforcements with woven structures before investigating the effects of the weft and warp sett and the thickness of the warp and weft threads on the SE ability. To measure the shielding effectiveness, we used the coaxial transmission line method, while an analytical approach was adopted to predict the shielding effectiveness of the carbon reinforcements and to compare the calculated values with the experimental data. The SE effectiveness of the reinforcements varied from 10 to 45 dB at a frequency of 1.5 GHz, with good agreement between the calculated and experimental results.