Electromagnetic Shielding and Reflection Loss of Conductive Yarn Incorporated Woven Fabrics at the S and X Radar Bands

Abstract

This study provides comparison of different types of conductive yarns stitched on top of the plain woven fabric via two different structures (parallel and mesh form) for electromagnetic shielding applications. Different types of structures with conductive yarns were investigated for electromagnetic shielding and reflection loss features within the S and X Radar bands. Conductive yarns; namely stainless steel, copper and silver plated polyamide yarns, having different linear resistance values were arranged evenly throughout the woven structure in parallel lines and in mesh form. The S-parameters (S11 and S21) of the woven fabrics were measured using a vector network analyzer in conjunction with a waveguide system incorporating the woven fabric samples. More specifically, the transmission line techniques with waveguides of type WR430 (WG9) and WR90 (WG16) were used; as such, the frequencies between 2.2–3.3 and 8.2–12.0 GHz were tested, respectively. Test results revealed that there is a highly varying shielding effectiveness among samples while there is also a remarkable difference with respect to shielding effectiveness between samples having mesh and parallel structure at horizontal polarizations.