2004:07

DOCTORAL THESIS
Characterization of Components
and Materials for EMC Barriers

Urban Lundgren

Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

Division of EISLAB
2004:07 ISSN: 1402 - 1544 ISRN: LTU - DT - - 04/07 - - SE

Characterization of components and

materials for EMC barriers

Urban Lundgren
EISLAB
Dept. of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Lule University of Technology
a
Lule Sweden
a,

Supervisors:
Professor Jerker Delsing and Professor Dag Bjrklf
o o

ii

To my dear wife Karin

and to my parents
Erland and Margaretha Lundgren

iv

Abstract
This thesis presents contributions to work for better methodologies for addressing Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) issues. In particular measurement methods are reviewed and devised for acquiring data on barriers used for EMC. Such data is used for
characterization, modeling and model verication of barriers.
The concept of EMC barriers is introduced as a general view of lter components,
separation of conductors (crosstalk problems), electromagnetic shielding etc. The aim
is to nd methodologies to help engineers to identify EMC problems and to include the
management of EMC in the design of a electrical circuit in a practical and eective
manner.
Methodologies for generation of EMC barrier modeling techniques have been developed. This work have resulted in design tools for electronic design engineers to include
EMC considerations at an early design stage of a new product.
Problems with existing barrier characterizing measurement methods have been identied. By comparison of far eld and near eld shielding eectiveness measurement methods, data for shielding thermoplastic materials was acquired. Considering the purpose
of studied shielding materials in an application the usefulness of the far eld shielding
eectiveness measurement method is questioned.
EMC barrier measurement methodologies of interest in this thesis includes shielding eectiveness measurements, transfer impedance measurements, scattering parameter
measurements, measurements of material permittivity and permeability and near eld
scanning techniques for analysis of current distributions.

vi

Contents
Chapter 1 - Thesis Introduction
1.1 The Need for Electromagnetic Compatibility in the Information Technology Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.2 EMC - a real and a legal requirement on electronics . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.3 A Motivation to Work on EMC Barriers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter 2 - EMC Barriers
2.1 Interpretation . . . . . .
2.2 Types of EMC Barriers .
2.3 Characterization of EMC
2.4 EMC Barrier Modeling .

1
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5
5
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8
11

Chapter 3 - Measurement Methods Essential to Work on Barriers

3.1 Introduction to measurement methodologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2 Shielding Eectiveness Measurement Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.3 Transfer Impedance Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.4 Characterization of Permittivity and Permeability . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.5 Near Field Scanning of Printed Circuit Boards and Conductive Surfaces .

13
13
14
18
20
22

Chapter 4 - Thesis Summary

4.1 Summary of Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

23
23

Chapter 5 - Conclusions - Suggested Further Work

31

References

33

Paper A

43

Paper B

51

Paper C

59

Paper D

67

Paper E

75

Paper F

83

Paper G

91

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Barriers
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viii

Preface
This thesis is a summary of the research I have been participating in at Lule University
a
of Technology since 1996, when a professorship in EMC Technology was inaugurated at
the University and the present EMC Laboratory was built.
It was not a coincidence that the EMC directive became mandatory in Sweden in
1996, making EMC a hot topic for all manufacturers of electronic products. Today Lule
a
EMC Center is a competence center for education, R&D and a support center for SMEs
in the region.
In 1996 I started on my master thesis project studying possible EMC problems related
to the use of high speed modems (VDSL) connected to overhead telecommunication lines.
That was my rst encounter with the concept of EMC and I really found a lot of new
interesting experiences. The new knowledge I acquired during the master thesis project
gave me a desire to nd out more. This experience was making me start thinking that
EM compatibility is something I want to work with.
After receiving the master of science degree in 1997 I came to a decision based on
many circumstances at that time, to consider staying at the university as a PhD student.
The occupation of people near me and discussions with friends doing PhD studies, made
me take the step towards a PhD degree.
I want to thank my supervisors, Professor Jerker Delsing and Professor Dag Bjrklf
o o
for their guidance and kind support. I want to thank all my friends and colleagues at
Lule University of Technology and especially ke and Jonas for assisting me and sharing
a
A
their experiences.
I also want to thank my wife, Karin Lundgren for helping me nding out what really
counts and my family for their support.

ix

Part I

xii

Chapter 1
Thesis Introduction
1.1

The Need for Electromagnetic Compatibility in

the Information Technology Society

In later years embedded systems and smart sensors have been of increasing interest for
machine to machine (sometimes abbreviated M2M) communication and automation of
services. In such devices it is sometimes desired to use wireless communication for transfer
of control and data.
People are experiencing that banking services and a variety of E-commerce opportunities exists through the use of modern information technology. Embedded systems also
increases the standard of living by oering a higher level of functionality to the home,
workplace and to the environment we live in.
In literature the future of digital services and media is expected to have a great
impact on the society [65, 2]. As a consequence this will make it hard or even fatal
for companies in many business areas to neglect the changing situation. When digital
information becomes more important, and more and more of products and services of
today becomes digitalized, digital communication between machines is essential.
For the access to digital services networked computers are used. To reduce the eort
made and improve the availability to gain access to digital services, mobile terminals such
as mobile phones and handheld computers (PDAs) can be used. Such mobile terminals
typically use wireless communication to maintain mobility while communication can take
place.
The use of robust wireless communication can give an advantage in electromagnetic
compatibility (EMC) issues if this implicate a reduction of cabling and galvanic interconnections in a system. For a system consisting of many parts with a substantial amount
of interconnections, electrical currents in ground conductors and cable shields can cause
electromagnetic interference problems.
However when the density of devices equipped with wireless communication capabilities increases, it is also important to realize that EMC considerations becomes central. A
device with wireless communication capabilities is a transceiver of electromagnetic energy
but may at the same time aect other radio receivers and be subject to electromagnetic
1

Introduction

interference (EMI) from other devices emitting electromagnetic energy.

To assure a high quality of communication and reliable operation while using a digital
service the electronic devices involved must be adapted to the electromagnetic environment where they will be used. More advanced services such as video communication will
require terminals with high performance (high clock frequency).
This scenario shows a number of issues that is known to inuence on the requirements
for EMC.
Wireless communication devices emits electromagnetic energy that may cause EMI
High clock frequencies in electronic circuits requires better knowledge of EMC to
design devices with reliable functionality
high level of integration of electronic circuits is used in handheld computers and
mobile phones, this may cause sensitivty to EMI
plastic encapsulation of electronics oers limited shielding performance and therefore increases the risk of EMI
larger number of electronic devices is expected and increases the risk of EMI
To manage the situation with an increasing density of mobile electronic devices where
many are equipped with wireless communication technology, EMC issues must be considered at at planning stage. Using electromagnetic simulation techniques to identify
situations where EMC problems may occur, the EMI threats can be reduced by EMC
barriers in the design of electronic devices.
There is a desire to come to better understanding how to make small electronic devices
that uses wireless communication but is protected from EMI. It is also an advantage if
this can be combined with an encapsulation technique that oers robust mechanical and
weatherproof capabilities.
As an example application where hard conditions must be met is electronic devices
for identication and monitoring of cargo containers. A module is attached to a cargo
container and by wireless communication it reports its whereabout and the status of the
cargo to the owner.
This kind of automated services will bring forward a big demand on reliable wireless
devices that must face hard condition including the threat of EMI.

1.2

EMC - a real and a legal requirement on electronics

The necessity of electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) is not that obvious for people
with no experience from electronic design. It is however necessary for modern electronic
devices to be designed with electromagnetic compatibility issues in mind to fulll
all safety and protection requirements and oer the functionality and quality expected
from the device. An apparatus both emits and receives electromagnetic energy conducted

1.2. EMC - a real and a legal requirement on electronics

on attached cables or radiated from enclosures and cables. That is just a side eect when
a electronic device is oering some functionality and can not be completely avoided.
Because of this undesired side eect there are legislated demands on the device regarding
its electromagnetic properties.
The European EMC directive (directive 89/336/EEC [21]) states under article 4 that
an electrical apparatus (covered by the directive) should be constructed so that:
the electromagnetic disturbance it generates does not exceed a level allowing radio
and telecommunications equipment and other apparatus to operate as intended
the apparatus has an adequate level of intrinsic immunity of electromagnetic disturbance to enable it to operate as intended.
Which means that a manufacturer of a apparatus covered by the directive must design
the apparatus and specify how it should be used so that it does not cause electromagnetic disturbance harming other devices that do comply with the directive. Also, the
apparatus must be designed to be immune to a normal level of electromagnetic energy
in the environment it is intended to be used.
These statements must be respected by all manufacturers of electric and electronic
equipment to be placed on the internal European market or they may experience legal
actions from market surveillance authorities. The way the directive is written (called
the new approach) gives the manufacturer responsibility of all products placed on the
market even if a product is approved by a third party, e.g. an accredited test lab or a
competent/notied body. The European EMC directive which was introduced in 1992
makes it necessary for manufacturers with intent to put their products on the European
market to address EMC issues.
In the United States the FCC regulations (FCC part 15 [24]) states limits on the
maximum acceptable levels (section 15.109) of emitted electromagnetic disturbance from
an apparatus working with signals in radio frequency (RF) range. However there are
no general regulations addressing a required level of a immunity against electromagnetic
disturbance as the case is in Europe. This issue is in the United States left for the market
itself to take care of, except for certain medical technical devices which are regulated by
FDA.
The EMC regulations are an important step since they are helping people to realize
that it is necessary to address electromagnetic compatibility problems. The problems
have to be solved before products involving electronic circuits can be put on the market
[9, 10].
Because of the increasing frequencies for the electromagnetic energy due to the use
of high clock frequencies and fast digital logic circuits in modern electronic designs, the
EMC requirements gets even harder to meet. It is necessary for the electronic designer
to incorporate EMC into the device at an early stage of the design process. If the EMC
issues are neglected until a working prototype is ready, the cost for xing eventual EMC
problems and non-complience may be severe. It is sometimes necessary to start over,
designing the device from scratch again. A good approach to reach EMC is usually to
use dierent kinds of electromagnetic barriers such as lters and shielding enclosures with

Introduction

conductive gaskets, or just a well planned layout of the circuit. It is much easier and
much less expensive to meet the regulations if the apparatus is well designed regarding
EMC aspects to start with, than trying to x an insucient design.

1.3

A Motivation to Work on EMC Barriers

It is well understood by most electronic design engineers that it is important to meet

requirements on EMC. However the lack of easy to use design tools to address EMC
problems often makes EMC xing necessary at a late stage in the design process. Better
knowledge of EMC barriers as components and design blocks can simplify EMC considerations at an early design stage.
This work aims in general to a better understanding of EMC barriers. From such understanding we can devise improved design and verication methodologies. Thus cutting
time to market and development costs.
My focus have been on:
measurement methodologies evaluating barriers
measurement methodologies characterizing barriers
measurement methodologies to produce barrier modeling input data
measurement methodologies for verication and validation of barrier modeling and
computer simulations
measurement methodologies for barrier material data such as permittivity and permeability
material data
Investigated barriers include lters, shielded cables, shielded connectors and shielding
materials for use in electronic device enclosures.
Following is a short review of barrier concepts and methods to model and experimentally characterize barriers.

Chapter 2
EMC Barriers
2.1

Interpretation

While designing an electronic circuit the engineer is trying to interconnect integrated

circuits or dierent kinds of discrete components so that the components and integrated
circuits interact to give the desired functionality. Designing circuits that make use of
high frequency electromagnetic signals puts extra demands on the interconnections.
A good approach when designing electronic circuits is to use an electromagnetic topology approach by separating the EM environment into zones with dierent signal quality
or dierent signal amplitudes.
The boundaries between the zones represents barriers and reduces the inuence of
charges and charge movements in one interconnection path on charges in another interconnection path. Such barriers often needs to be frequency selective so that desired
function of interconnections can be maintained. The electromagnetic barriers thereby offers a certain attenuation of electromagnetic energy that reduces the threat of electronic
equipment in one zone interfering with equipment in another zone.
Barriers can be divided into physical barriers and geometrical barriers. The physical barrier category contains standard construction elements like lters, where internal
component values and geometrical design usually are unknown. The characteristics for
these barriers can be found on datasheets from the manufacturer or have to be obtained
by measurements.
The geometrical barriers can be characterized completely by the geometrical design
and material properties, here of course the exact material properties can sometimes be
hard to nd. Examples of this kind is for instance enclosures made of homogeneous conductive materials like metals and plastic materials, printed circuit board trace separation
and separation between pins in a multiconductor connector.

2.2

Types of EMC Barriers

Electromagnetic barriers used in EMC problem solutions may take many dierent forms.
A short overview will be given with examples on barriers and how they are used. The
5

EMC Barriers

following examples are considered:

Physical or generalized screens (Shields)
Conductive gaskets
Shielded cables and connectors
AC line lters
Feed through lters
Conductor spacing/routing
To reduce radiated interference or radiated emissions, a barrier in the form of a
conductive enclosure can be used as a shield, enclosing the victim or the radiating source.
The design of a shielding enclosure can be a tricky task since the enclosure often play
many roles and must fulll requirements other than those on electromagnetic shielding.
When designing shielding enclosures thus compromises must be made. The design should
oer:
Low production cost for enclosure
Customer appealing and user friendly product
Ventilation or cooling for interior parts
Communication with user and/or other devices
Mechanical protection for interior parts
Moisture and dust seal
Electromagnetic shielding
Care must be taken when choosing materials and production techniques so that the
necessary enclosure properties lasts for the specied lifetime of the product
There are of course many techniques available in each aspect of the enclosure design
problem. Considering the electromagnetic shielding aspect, the enclosure material can
be metallic, nonconductive covered with a conductive layer or conductive composite or
polymer. The choice of material inuences on the possible techniques available for meeting the overall specication on an enclosure. It is important that a good compromise
can be reached between material and production cost, and enclosure design regarding
shielding performance and user friendliness.
The electromagnetic shielding oered by a shielding material used in an enclosure is
a combination of shielding eects where each can be physically explained by theory. For
electromagnetic waves the electric eld component E and the magnetic eld component

2.2. Types of EMC Barriers

H(f)
I(f)

Figure 2.1: As an example a shielding box of high conductivity material can oer good shielding
even for time varying magnetic elds H(f ) if induced currents I(f ) are free to ow all over
the surface. An aperture forces currents to a longer path around the aperture which causes a
voltage potential dierence across the aperture that can couple into the shielding box

H are orthogonal and related by a wave impedance Z depending on the medium where
the wave is propagating.
E
Z=
H
In free space the wave impedance is constant and equal to 377. This is the case when
far eld shielding is referred to and then the shielding eects can be described by the
following losses:
Absorption losses due to ohmic losses in shielding material.
Reection losses due to impedance change for propagating EM wave crossing medium
boundary.

For near eld shielding (distance from source less than 2 ) the electric eld and
the magnetic eld components must be considered separately and can be treated using
dierent shielding approaches. The eld type and frequency decides which materials and
techniques to use to achieve desired shielding performance:

Faradays cage shielding, high conductivity material, eective for electric elds
Low-reluctance path shielding, high permeability material, eective for magnetic
elds
Induced eddy current shielding, high conductivity material, eective for high frequency magnetic elds
For an enclosure where a high level of electromagnetic shielding is desired, a metallic
material is the best choice since metals oers the best conductivity. The enclosure will
thereby oer good shielding eectiveness for both electric and magnetic eld at reasonable
high frequencies.
The desired lifecycle of shielding enclosure is a main factor when the designer is
choosing the materials to be used. If metallic materials are used to make an enclosure

EMC Barriers

oering a high level of shielding it may be necessary to include bolts, rivets and gaskets
in the enclosure design to ensure high conductivity between the parts. High conductivity
paths between the parts are necessary for the shielding performance, see Figure 2.1,
but is also a problem when considering the life cycle of the shielding enclosure. High
conductivity paths between dierent metals can accelerate corrosion and can also cause
noise in sensitive circuits [54].
Filters are used for separating zones in electronics with dierent electromagnetic environment (EME). On a printed circuit board ground planning is necessary when dierent
parts of the circuit have dierent signal quality for instance analog ground and digital
ground. When a signal trace is crossing a boundary between electromagnetic zones surface mounted lters can be used to keep the integrity of the boundary and the signal
in the more sensitive circuit. It is also wise to make sure that the board is routed to
give adequate separation between traces especially for traces with analog signals with
low signal levels and traces that is crossing zone boarders.

2.3

Characterization of EMC Barriers

It is desired to nd ways to describe barriers so that the eciency of dierent barrier

solutions can be compared. That enables manufacturers of lters, gaskets and other
barrier components to improve component designs and compare material choices. It
would also be a great advantage if circuit simulations were possible with the barrier
components included. That would give the electronic design engineer tools to evaluate
the EMC performance of a design in an early design stage. In order to make such barrier
descriptions, techniques to characterize the electromagnetic properties of the barriers are
needed.
A barrier is often described in terms of:
scattering parameters
shielding eectiveness
insertion loss
attenuation
circuit elements
transfer impedance and transfer admittance
lumped circuit network

2.3.1

Scattering parameters

Scattering parameters is a commonly used tool in RF and microwave design. The scattering parameters (s-parameters) represents the reection coecients and transmission
coecients for a two port circuit. The two involved reection coecients are denoted S11
and S22 . The two transmission coecients are denoted S12 and S21 .

2.3. Characterization of EMC Barriers

a1

S21

a2

S12

S11

Port 1

S22

b1

S 11=

b1
a1

Port 2
b2

a 2= 0

S 21=

b2
a1

a2= 0

S 12=

b1
a2

a1= 0

S 22=

b2
a2

a1= 0

Figure 2.2: Using scattering parameters to describe signal paths in a two-port

Scattering parameters can be explained by studying a passive two-port shown in gure

2.2. If a electromagnetic wave enters the two-port via a connected transmission line, the
wave is scattered and both transmitted trough the two-port and reected back towards
the source of the wave. The relationships between the incident wave, the transmitted
wave and the reected wave is represented by the s-parameters.
For a forward direction of wave propagation the incident wave is denoted a1 , the
transmitted wave b2 and the reected wave b1 . For a backward direction of wave propagation the incident wave is denoted a2 , the transmitted wave b1 and the reected wave b2 .
These representations of waves are actually complex entities and so are the corresponding s-parameters. A complex s-parameter holds information of the magnitude ratio and
phase angle dierence between the two waves that is considered.
b1
b2

S11 S12
S21 S22

a1
a2

(2.1)

If a complete four s-parameter description is available it is often presented in matrix form, equation (2.1). By transformation of the s-parameter matrix into the what
is called the chain-matrix the eect of cascading networks can easily be calculated by
matrix multiplication. Generalizations of the s-parameter description can be made for
characterization of networks with three ports or more [41, 50].

2.3.2

Shielding Eectiveness

Shielding enclosure materials and conductive gasket performance can be specied by

means of shielding eectiveness that is obtained by an insertion loss measurement. The
insertion loss is the dierence between attenuation measurements with and without the
object present in a xture.
For insertion loss measurements the attenuation of the test object equals the inverse
of the magnitude of the scattering parameter representing transmission, S21 (or S12 ).
Insertion loss measurements are usually made with far eld shielding conditions using
transmitting and receiving antennas or in transmission line xtures.

10

2.3.3

EMC Barriers

Circuit Elements

Barriers characteristics can also be described by a circuit schematic. The circuit elements
and their values describing the barrier is sometimes easily obtained from datasheets,
sometimes they are possible to extract from the geometry or by measurements. It is
sometimes a great advantage to use the circuit description because of the possibility
to include the barrier in a circuit simulation of the entire system. The eect of the
barrier then can be studied under correct drive and load conditions in time domain or in
frequency domain [14, 46].
Shielding performance is sometimes given in form of the transfer impedance. This is
typically the case for shielded cables, shielded connectors and conductive gaskets but it
can also be used for shielded enclosures in general. To completely describe the shielding
eect on electromagnetic elds the transfer impedance description is not enough, there is
also a transfer admittance that can be causing leakage through an electromagnetic shield.
The transfer impedance Zt represents two coupling mechanisms namely the diusion
through the thickness of the shield and the magnetic eld coupling through imperfections
in the shield [49], see left part of gure 2.3. It can be obtained from measurements as the
ratio of a potential dierence across an electric eld Eout on the secondary side of a shield
due to a current density Jin on the primary side, see equation (2.2). The current density
used in this context is the current per unit length of a gasketed seam or per width of a
shielding surface rather than the current per area commonly used in other contexts. The
current density is therefore given the dimension of [A/m] rather than [A/m2 ].
Zt =

Eout
Jin

(2.2)

Yt =

Jout
Ein

(2.3)

Transfer admittance Yt that represents electric eld coupling through imperfections

in the shield, [49], is instead the ratio of the current density Jout on the secondary side
of the shield by the potential dierence across the primary side caused by an incident
electric eld Jin , see equation (2.3). This is shown in the right part of gure 2.3.
However the eect of the transfer impedance on the shield leakage is often dominant
over the transfer admittance which thereby often can be neglected [49, 55]. The transfer
impedance and transfer admittance are usually considered as being a distributed homogeneously over the length of a gasketed seam or similarly for other components. It
is therefore practical to use the transfer impedance/admittance description only at frequencies where the wavelength is much greater than the size of the shielding component
to be characterized.
Using transfer impedance xtures, shielding components can be characterized by measurements with good repeatability [58] from really low frequencies (dc) up to a frequency
dependent on the size of the xture. Transfer impedance measurement results characterizing conductive gaskets at frequencies up to 10 GHz have been published[37].

11

2.4. EMC Barrier Modeling

Transfer impedance

Transfer admittance

Primary side

Primary side

Current density, Jin

Electric field, Ein

Electric field, Eout

Secondary side

Current density, Jout

Secondary side

Figure 2.3: To the left the two coupling mechanisms represented by transfer impedance is shown.
To the right the coupling mechanism represented by transfer admittance is shown.

2.3.4

Other measures to characterize and evaluate EMC barriers

Material electromagnetic properties such as complex permittivity and complex permittivity are another description from which an EMC barrier can be characterized. Using
traditional absorbtion loss and reection loss calculations the shielding eectiveness of a
material can be estimated under certain assumptions [48].
For dielectric materials included in EMC barriers, the knowledge of the material
complex permittivity and complex permittivity may be necessary for accurate modeling
of those barriers. Barrier models can then by computer simulation give an estimation on
shielding eectiveness etc.
For some EMC barriers an approach for characterization is to study the current
distribution that results from some excitation. It may for instance be of interest to
study the current distribution over a gasketed seam in a shielding enclosure application
to understand the eect of dierent conductive gaskets.
In the layout of printed circuit boards (PCBs) the eect of separated ground segments
can be analyzed by studying the ground layer current distribution and can adjustments
can be made to solve signal integrity issues. In addition electromagnetic radiation from
a conductive surface can be estimated if the surface current distribution is known.
On approach to investigate a current distribution by measurement is by near eld
scanning of magnetic eld component over a conductive surface and then estimate the
corresponding surface currents.

2.4

EMC Barrier Modeling

The need to address EMC issues at an early stage of product development is driving
research on computer modeling techniques to analyze design solutions. Replacing EMC
measurements on product prototypes with computer simulations also makes it possible
to try varied designs at a lower cost. For development of numerical modeling techniques
for use in computer simulations, comparisons with measured data and analytical models

12

EMC Barriers

are essential for verication and validation.

Depending on the complexity of an EMC barrier its characterization may be obtainable by modeling the structure of the barriers and applying a numerical electromagnetic
eld solver that can extract the s-parameters or circuit component values from the geometry and material data given in the model. This approach is of course desired and it
sometimes gives opportunities to study internal characteristics that hardly can be studied
by other means.
To provide barrier component- and material data for EMC barrier modeling it is
often necessary to characterize physical samples by measurements. This is particularly
the case for components with unknown internal geometries and when new materials with
unknown electromagnetic properties are involved. For this kind of measurements an
instrument known as a vector network analyzer is used because of its ability to collect
a full s-parameter description of a studied two-port. It is often necessary to design a
custom made xture for this measurement depending on the design and shape of the
barrier and the frequency range that is considered for the measurement.
Earlier research in this eld have investigated discrete component models for improving the high frequency accuracy of circuit simulations [70]. By including stray capacitances and pin inductances realistic simulation results were obtained at frequencies up
to 1 GHz for resistors, capacitors and coils.
More recent research have diversied and is covering a wide range of aspects. Numerical modeling techniques for extracting lumped component values or transmission line parameters from geometrical structures has been an expanding research area [60, 43, 69, 5].
Finite Dierence Time Domain (FDTD), Partial Equivalent Element Circuit (PEEC)
and Method of Moments (MOM) are the most commonly used numerical techniques [5].
Generation of a lumped circuit model followed by a circuit simulation using SPICE
or equivalent software tools is an approach many have chosen to use [60, 18]. For circuit
simulations of crosstalk in multi conductor cables and on printed circuit boards models
based on transmission lines and multi conductor transmission lines are commonly used
[43, 69]. Earlier work usually focuses on a specic barrier or design element and do not
develop generic approaches to generate lumped element circuit models.

Chapter 3
Measurement Methods Essential to
Work on Barriers
3.1

Introduction to measurement methodologies

The concept of EMC barriers is a general view of techniques to reduce interference between electronic devices or interference within a device (signal integrity). Since a barrier
can be in the form of an electromagnetic shielding enclosure as well as a lter component, dierent measurement methods must be used for characterization of dierent
barrier types.
Shielding eectiveness (SE) measurements are typically used for characterization
of shielding materials and components of a shield such as conductive gaskets.
Scattering parameters (s-parameters) measurements are used for characterization
of lters and can also be used to study signal integrity and crosstalk problems.
Transfer impedance (Zt ) measurements are typically used for characterization of
shielded cables, shielded conductors and conductive gaskets.
Permittivity and permeability measurements are used for characterization of materials used in barriers. This data can then be used in barrier modeling.
Near eld scanning measurements may be used for analysis of current distribution
in a conductive surface. For instance divided ground planes can be analyzed.
Development of computer simulation techniques needs verication and validation to
prove the technique to be accurate when solving real design problems. This is usually
accomplished by comparisons of simulation results with analytical models and with measurements on prototypes. Dierent measurements methods are used for this purpose to
compare an observable parameter with the corresponding parameter from a simulation.
13

14

3.2

Measurement Methods

Shielding Eectiveness Measurement Methods

The methods to measure the shielding eectiveness of an enclosure or a conductive gasket

or other shielding components includes a variety of standard methods and variation on
standard methods. A performance value can be obtained using radiated measurements
methods, transmission line xture methods and so on. Each measurement method is producing a performance value that is hard to relate to the performance value obtained using
another measurement method. For example a measurement method where a shielding
material sample is mounted inside a coaxial transmission line, will not necessarily expose
the sample for the same electromagnetic eld impedance as a method where an incident
plane wave is radiated from an antenna [68].
There exists standardized measurement methods for obtaining a performance value
for shielding enclosures and shielding enclosure components such as conductive gaskets.
However, these standardized methods can not always be used because they need well
dened samples that is sometimes impossible to make due to the properties of the object
to be measured. In these cases it is necessary to design measurement equipment that
diers from standardized equipment. The custom made measurement equipment can be
tailored to be used for measurements on specic gaskets or sheets of material with a
particular shape and size.
Unfortunately it is very hard to relate the data obtained with a tailored xture to
corresponding data as obtained according to standards and thereby the eort is not
always made. Another reason why this relationship is seldom established is the fact
that it is well known that some standardized measurement techniques struggles with
repeatability problems, for example [68].

3.2.1

MIL-STD-285 Type Methods

The foundation of shielding eectiveness measurements has earlier been the American
military standard MIL-STD-285 from 1956 [51]. The standard is now withdrawn but
improved methods of this type have made new standards evolve. The method uses two
screened rooms with one common wall as shown in gure 3.1. This wall has an aperture
where test objects are mounted.
In one room is the transmitter antenna located and the receiver antenna is located
in the other room, the antennas are directed towards each other and at a x distance
from each other. The transmitter is transmitting at constant power and the receiver
measure the transferred power with and without test object mounted in the aperture.
The dierence between these measurements is the insertion loss (IL) for the test object.
Measurements according to MIL-STD-285 have been used to examine new shielding materials as conductive composites and performance of conductive gaskets. Drawbacks with
the method are that measured insertion loss is dependent on the antenna placement and
the reections of the electromagnetic wave inside the screened rooms. This makes the
repeatability poor.
Improved versions of the method in MIL-STD-285 have developed were the problems
with reections have been minimized by the use of absorbing material in the chambers

3.2. Shielding Effectiveness Measurement Methods

15

Test object
Transmit antenna

Receive antenna

Figure 3.1: Shielding eectiveness measurement according to the standard MIL-STD-285

[11]. New improved version of the method in MIL-STD-285 can also be found in the
standard IEEE-STD-299 from 1997 [33]. Frequency range a few MHz to 18 GHz [58].

3.2.2

Dual Mode Stirred Chamber

A measurement method called the dual mode stirred chamber or dual reverberation
chamber method is being developed by FOI, the Swedish Defence Research Agency in
Linkping, Sweden, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the USA
o
and others [58, 56, 28, 26, 67, 57]. It uses two mode stirred chambers next to each other
with a common wall having an aperture for mounting of test objects.
A mode stirred chamber is a shielded room with a mode stirring arrangement to
create electromagnetic elds with a large number of modes within the chamber, see
gure 3.2. The mode stirring arrangement can be a mechanical paddle wheel or some
other highly conductive structure that can be rotated stepwise or continuously. It can
also be implemented by modulating the signal source and create frequency mode stirring
[63], also referred to as electronic mode stirring.
The multimode electromagnetic eld in the chambers can be of high amplitude using
a small not to expensive power amplier. A 1 Watt amplier can be used to create a
eld in the chamber with electric components of 100 Volts per meter or more, depending
on the quality factor (Q) of the chamber [63].
The facility can be used for mode tuning when the stirring mechanism is stepped between measurements so that several measurements are obtained in dierent electromagnetic environments. A mode stirring action can also be used when the stirring mechanism
is causing a continuously changing electromagnetic environment in the chamber.
This makes the measurements considerably easier, the placement of antennas is for
instance not critical here. Drawbacks are that the needed equipment to control the mode
stirring can be expensive and the method does not show if the test object is particularly
sensitive to a certain eld polarity from a certain direction. The lower frequency limit for
the method is about 500 MHz and it is dependent on the smallest size of the mode stirred
chambers (the smallest distance inside a chamber should be seven times the wavelength of

16

Measurement Methods

Stirring paddle

Transmit
antenna

Stirring paddle

Test object
Receive antenna

Figure 3.2: Shielding eectiveness measurement using a dual mode stirred chamber facility

the lowest frequency [56], i.e. 500 MHz gives a distance of more than four meters). Other
ways to derive the lowest useful frequency [31, 15, 17] gives dierent lower frequency limit
and to really know the lower frequency limit, measurement of the eld uniformity [31] in
the completed chamber is the best way to get an exact realistic value [29].

3.2.3

Apertured TEM Cell in a Reverberating Chamber

This is a simplied method [58, 67] that makes use of one mode stirred chamber. Inside
the chamber a transmitting antenna is located and an apertured TEM cell as receiver
[58, 40]. The location of the transmitting antenna and the TEM cell is not critical but
the antenna should not be aiming towards the TEM cell and the TEM cell should not be
close to the walls or other reecting objects [31, 15]. A TEM cell is an expanded section
of a rectangular co-axial transmission line. The sample is mounted over an aperture
in the TEM cell. An electromagnetic eld is then generated with the antenna and a
receiving instrument connected to the TEM cell is used to measure the leakage through
the sample. The usable frequency range is 200 MHz to 1 GHz and dynamic range about
100 dB [58].

3.2.4

Dual TEM Cell

A related and even cheaper method is the dual TEM cell method [58, 67, 53, 35]. Here
two TEM cells are connected together in a piggy-back manner, see gure 3.3. The
TEM cells are coupled trough an aperture in the common wall. An important feature
with this measurement method is that near eld SE measurements are obtained (E-eld
and H-eld shielding eectiveness).
One TEM cell is connected to a signal source and terminated in the other end. The
second TEM cell have two outputs where electric eld coupling and magnetic eld coupling can be measured respectively. The aperture is covered with the sample to be
investigated. A drawback with this method is that the polarization of the electric eld
is normal to the sample [58]. A nice feature with this method is that both electric- and

17

3.2. Shielding Effectiveness Measurement Methods

Test sample

Termination
Signal
source

Far end measurement

Near end measurement

Figure 3.3: Shielding eectiveness measurement using a dual transverse electromagnetic (TEM)
cell

magnetic eld shielding simultaneously can be investigated by measuring the received

power in both ends of the secondary TEM cell. The frequency range for this method is
1 MHz to 200 MHz and the dynamic range is about 60 dB.

3.2.5

Split TEM Cell (TEM-T Cell)

Another usage of the TEM cell is the split TEM cell [58, 35, 27], it is also called rectangular split transmission line holder. The split TEM cell is made as an ordinary TEM cell
in two halves. A sample is characterized by the insertion loss calculated from a measurement of attenuation through the empty cell with the halves joined and a measurement of
attenuation through the shorted cell with the halves joined with the sample in between.
Both the center conductor and the outer conductor must make good contact with the
sample on both sides so that the cell is shorted by the sample.
The receiving half of the TEM cell can be modied to measure the magnetic eld
shielding eciency. Then a loop antenna is combined with a box equipped with a 90degree angle reector on one wall. The loop antenna is mounted trough the reector
such that three quarters of the loop is inside the box and one quarter outside. When
performing a measurement the wall with the reector and quarter loop antenna is joined
with the half TEM cell and the sample in between. The frequency range for this method
is 1MHz to 1 GHz (1 MHz to 400 MHz for H-eld) and the dynamic range about 70-80dB
[58].

3.2.6

Circular Coaxial Holder

There are two quite dierent versions of this kind of test xture [27, 58]. The continuous
conductor (cc) version is an expanded 50 coaxial transmission line with tapered ends to
t standard 50 coaxial connector. The sample has to have an annular washer shape to
t between the inner and outer conductor and thereby short the transmission line. The
continuous conductor test xture has an operating frequency range of dc to 1 GHz and
a dynamic range of 90 - 100 dB [58].

18

Measurement Methods

The other version called split conductor (sc) is described in the standard ASTMD4935 and has a similar design but is split in two halves. This simplies mounting of
test samples. Test samples are needed both for the reference measurement and for the
actual measurement of the material.
For the reference measurement a small disc shaped piece is tted between center
conductors and a large washer shaped piece is tted between outer conductors. In the
actual measurement a large disc shaped piece is tted between the two halves of the
xture. This method keeps distance and material between the two parts of the xture
constant except for the region between center and outer conductor. The outer conductor
is equipped with anges to oer good capacitive coupling between the two halves of the
xture.
The insertion loss is calculated as the dierence between the measurement of the large
disc sample and the reference measurement. The split conductor xture has a frequency
range of 1 MHz to 1.8 GHz and a dynamic range of 90 - 100 dB [58].

3.2.7

Dual Chamber Test Fixture (ASTM ES7-83)

A box split into two sections. Each section has an antenna xed on the inside. A sheet of
the sample material is sandwiched between the two sections and the transmission through
the material is measured. As a reference the transmission between the antennas are
measured without the sample present. From these measurements the shielding eciency
is calculated as the insertion loss. The test method has been used for frequencies from
100 kHz to 1 Ghz and gives a dynamic range of 80 dB.

3.3

Transfer Impedance Methods

The transfer impedance or surface transfer impedance is a way to describe the high
frequency characteristics of an electromagnetic shield in terms of lumped or distributed
circuit elements. Properties inuencing the performance of an electromagnetic shield
are the skin depth, geometrical shape among others. By determination of the transfer
impedance these properties are modelled by a circuit element giving the corresponding
electric eld on the secondary shield surface for a certain current on the primary shield
surface. This model are then very suitable for generation of a SPICE model making it
possible to simulate the penetration of an electromagnetic shield in a circuit simulator
[46].

3.3.1

Transfer Impedance of Coaxial Cables

For measuring the eciency of a coaxial cable shield a method is commonly used were
transfer impedance is measured. The standard IEC 96-1A [32] describes this procedure
and the design of the test xture. The triaxial xture setup used in this standard can for
a characterization of a 50 schematically be shown as in gure 3.4. The xture is usually
used with a network analyzer and transmission through the xture (S21 ) is recorded. The
transfer impedance of the cable shield can then be calculated be a formula (3.1) given in

19

3.3. Transfer Impedance Methods

50

U ~

50

50

Figure 3.4: Schematic measurement setup example for the triaxial transfer impedance xture
used in standard IEC 96-1A

the standard.

60
))
d
where d is the outer diameter of the cable screen under test.
Zt = abs(S21 2 1.4 60 ln(

(3.1)

Other standards exists for transfer impedance measurements on shielded cables. The
useful frequency range for the IEC 96-1A xture is DC to 30 MHz. More advanced
xtures using quadraxial and quintaxial setups are useful up to 1 GHz [30].

3.3.2

Transfer impedance of conductive gaskets

The standard SAE ARP 1705 [61] (from 1981) and the revised version SAE ARP 1705A
[62] (from 1997) describes how transfer impedance measurements is used to determine
the performance of EMC gaskets. Transfer impedance is dened as the voltage Uout on
the secondary side of the shield divided by the current density Jin (in Ampere per meter)
on the primary side of the shield, see gure 3.5 . The current density Jin may for instance
be induced by an incident electromagnetic eld. The higher the transfer impedance for
a gasket is the lower is the performance of the gasket since an electromagnetic eld on
the front side of the shield easier can give raise to electromagnetic elds on the backside
of the shield.
The measurement procedure is straightforward and to be able to determine the transfer impedance from the measured entities a simplied low frequency model of the test
xture is used, by improvements of this model more exact results would be obtained
[56, 13]. The test xture in the standard SAE ARP 1705 is stated to be useful for absolute measurements up to 700MHz. There are improved versions of transfer impedance
test xtures for use at higher frequencies [36, 37].
The contact pressure between the gasket and the mating surface is an important
parameter that has to be controlled when a gasket is examined. In the SAE ARP 1705
xture this is accomplished by pneumatic pressure behind a membrane involving the
cover that rests on the gasket. This method has its drawbacks, especially when testing

20

Measurement Methods

Jin
+
Uout

Figure 3.5: The transfer impedance measurement on a conductive gasket

ngerstock gaskets that needs a small contact pressure and long compression height [64].
The newer SAE ARP 1705A the membrane is removed and the new construction is using
pneumatic cylinders to set the contact pressure.

3.3.3

Transfer Impedance of Shielded Connectors

For shielded connectors the transfer impedance characterization is also commonly used.
Dierent xtures are used in published studies [22, 66].

3.3.4

Relating Transfer Impedance to Other Performance Measures

The transfer impedance is a circuit theory description of the shielding performance. In a

xture for transfer impedance measurement the purpose of the xture design is usually
to establish an uniform current distribution over the test object.
In measurement methods for shielding eectiveness in terms of insertion loss, the attenuation of an electromagnetic wave is studied. In this case no special eort is made to
control the current distribution caused by the incident eld. Here the focus is on standardized antenna positions and other measures for the repeatability of the measurement.
There is no easy way to convert transfer impedance to the insertion loss measured
using a MIL-STD-285 type measurement since that would require the geometry of the
test xture and the incident angle of the eld towards the gaskets to be taken into
account [20, 57]. Experimental comparisons have been performed to relate the dierent
representations of shielding performance [58, 25, 26, 1, 38].

3.4

Characterization of Permittivity and Permeability

Several methods exists for the measurement of permeability and permittivity. The most
common measurement methods can be categorized as:

3.4. Characterization of Permittivity and Permeability

21

Loaded resonant waveguide cavity

Open ended coaxial line
Loaded coaxial transmission line
Loaded cavity resonance measurement methods are commonly used because of the
good accuracy oered, particularly for measurement of imaginary part of the permittivity
for determining the losses in a material [6, 7]. That sample material is mounted inside
a resonant cavity and thereby loading the cavity. The sample piece must be of certain
dimensions to t. However the resonance of a cavity makes the method only covering a
narrow frequency band. This can be improved to some extend by including higher order
resonant modes.
The open ended coaxial line has a main advantage that it is a non destructive test
method. The coaxial probe is pressed against a specimen and the reection coecient
is measured. From the reection coecient the permittivity can be determined. [6, 19].
One disadvantage is that the method is sensitive to air gaps that disturb the electric eld
the probe and the sample [6]. The measurement accuracy for this method is not as good
as the other methods mentioned.
In the loaded coaxial transmission line method the material under test is placed to
ll the volume between the inner and outer conductor in a section along the transmission
line. The dimensions of the sample piece are critical to ensure a precise t. The material
may load the line and cause a change of characteristic impedance. Both reection and
transmission through the xture is used when calculating the test material data [6, 8].
The measurement accuracy for this method is not as good as that of loaded cavity
resonance measurement methods. An advantage of the loaded coaxial transmission line
method is that it oers the possibility to perform measurements in a broad frequency
band.
The advantages and disadvantages of the methods gives a guideline on what measurement method to use depending on restrictions on sample preparation and desired
frequency range and accuracy of the data. The loaded cavity resonance measurement
method gives high accuracy data for narrowband measurements at frequencies of over
100 GHz. The open ended coaxial line oers a method where only a at surface of studied material is needed. The loaded coaxial transmission line method makes it possible
to measure over wide frequency range with better accuracy than what the open ended
coaxial line method oers [6].
There exists a large number of publications on electromagnetic properties of plastic materials. Older publication (before 1985) often focused on plastic material data at
frequencies below 100 MHz [12]. In later years plastic material data at microwave frequencies have been of major concern because the increased need for accurate data when
designing devices working at higher frequencies [59]. It is then also important to study
the temperature variations in the electromagnetic properties of the material under test
[12, 59]. Because of temperature variations the dielectric material can cause impedance
mismatch losses and degrade the performance of a device. A good overview of available
measurement methods are given in publications [6, 7].

22

3.5

Measurement Methods

Near Field Scanning of Printed Circuit Boards

and Conductive Surfaces

Near eld scanning is a useful tool in EMC for nding radiating sources on a printed
circuit board (PCB). A broken component or a poorly routed conductor trace can thereby
be identied and xed.
In particular near eld scanning of magnetic eld over a conductive surface gives a
hint of the surface current distribution. In this case a magnetic eld probe is stepwise
positioned over the conductive surface and connected to one port of a vector network
analyser. The other port of the vector network analyser is connected to the conductive
surface for excitation of surface currents. The coupling between the surface and the eld
probe is measured to magnitude and phase. From this magnetic eld distribution the
surface current distribution can be estimated [34].
An investigation on near eld radiation from traces on a printed circuit board shows
good agreements between measured and simulated elds [16]. Both E-eld and H-eld
probes was used and the magnitude of the eld was studied. The near eld scan were
collected using a computer controlled three dimensional positioning mechanism. A similar
study were done using two probes scanning simultaneously at dierent height to obtain
a phase dierence and a amplitude dierence [42]. The measured values compares well
with simulated results using a thin-wire structure analysis program (NEC). The method
of near eld scanning used in the study is suggested to be accurate enough for far eld
predictions of the radiation from a printed circuit board.
For antenna design work near eld scanning is also used. The current distribution in
a printed antenna can be analyzed and the far eld radiation pattern can be estimated
[34]. By scanning of magnetic eld over a ground plane on a printed circuit board the
current distribution can be analyzed and it can be decided if the ground planning design
stage have been done properly. This type of analysis usually better suited to be run in a
computer simulation. However it is of great value to able to verify computer simulation
results with measured data.

Chapter 4
Thesis Summary

4.1

Summary of Contributions

My research is documented in seven papers of which two are submitted to scientic

journals and ve have been presented at scientic conferences and published in conference
proceedings.
Paper A:
Carlsson J. and Lundgren U., An Approach to the Generation of SPICE Models Feasible for EMC Problems, Symposium Record, 2000 IEEE International Symposium On
Electromagnetic Compatibility, (Washington, D.C., USA), 2000
Paper B:
Jenvey S. and Lundgren U., A comparison of measured and simulated current distributions on a printed log-periodic antenna, Symposium Record, Antenn 00, Nordic Antenna
Symposium, (Lund, Sweden), 2000
Paper C:
Ekman J. and Lundgren U., Analysis of Printed Antenna Structures using the Partial
Element Equivalent Circuit (PEEC) Method, Symposium Record, EMB01, (Uppsala,
Sweden), 2001
Paper D:
Lundgren U., Carlsson J. and Delsing J., SPICE models of barrier compared to measured
data, Symposium Record, 2001 IEEE International Symposium On Electromagnetic
Compatibility, (Montreal, Canada), 2001
Paper E:
Lundgren U., Ekman J. and Delsing J., Characterization of Conductive Thermoplastic
Composite Materials Using Multiple Measurements Methods, Symposium Record, EMC
Europe 2002, (Sorrento, Italy), 2002
23

24

Thesis Summary

Paper F:
Lundgren U., Ekman J. and Delsing J., Shielding Eectiveness Data on Commercial
Thermoplastic Materials, Submitted to Electromagnetic Compatibility, IEEE Transactions on
Paper G:
Lundgren U. and Delsing J., Electromagnetic properties of thermoplastic material for
varying temperatures, Submitted to Microwave Theory and Techniques, IEEE Transactions on

4.1.1

Paper A: An approach to the generation of SPICE models

feasible for EMC problems

Considering electromagnetic barriers and the desire to be able to simulate barriers in

circuit simulators, work have been done to develop methods to generate SPICE models for
a few barrier kinds. The barriers considered are divided into two groups, physical barriers
and geometrical barriers. In the physical barrier group we can nd lters and other
commercially available components with unknown interior structure. The geometrical
barriers are geometrically well known structures like a shielding enclosure or separation
of traces on a printed circuit board.
It has been shown that for a geometrical barrier where the structure has a xed
cross section, the barrier characteristics can be calculated with inexpensive tools if the
material properties are known. Barriers with stepwise changing cross sections were also
applicable when dierent circuit model segments were cascaded. A two-dimensional nite
dierence program was developed in which the cross-section of the barrier is dened using
a CAD-like user interface. The program computes the per-unit length parameters of the
multi-conductor transmission line assumption of the barrier.
Prototype printed circuit boards incorporating the studied barriers was subject to
measurements. Good agreement was obtained between measurements and circuit simulation results with the generated circuit model of the barrier. The highest useful frequency
for models created with this approach depends on the number of segments in the lumped
circuit model.
For physical barriers another technique was developed based on measurements on the
barrier followed by a error minimization procedure of an assumed lumped component
circuit to the measured data. Models generated this way was also veried by comparison
of measured values to simulation results of the generated model. Good agreement was
obtained for all comparisons at frequencies up to 1 GHz. Some models were performing
well up to 4 GHz (limited by lab equipment), while some models could be improved to
perform well in the frequency range 1 GHz to 4 GHz.

4.1. Summary of Contributions

4.1.2

25

Paper B: A comparison of measured and simulated current distribution on a printed log-periodic antenna

The current distribution on a log periodic dipole antenna (LPDA) have been studied using
near eld measurements and simulations based on method of moments. The antenna was
constructed on a printed circuit board.
Detailed measurements of the magnetic eld was obtained with 5 mm stepping two
dimensional scanning just above the surface of the antenna. The eld was sampled
using a loop probe connected to a vector network analyzer. The probe was positioned
by a computer controlled scanning mechanism. Two polarizations of the magnetic eld
was acquired with magnitude and phase. The current distribution on the antenna were
studied by examining the magnetic elds obtained by the scanning procedure.
The use of the printed circuit board to support the radiating elements and the parallel
wire transmission feeder line led to a mixed dielectric environment. This aected the
current distributions on the feeder and the radiating elements and hence the radiation
patterns and the impedance characteristics of the antenna.
Measured current distributions were compared with predicted distributions obtained
from Method of Moments (MOM) analysis of the LPDA structure. Comparison results
show that magnetic eld scanning of a printed antenna is a useful tool for getting a better
understanding of the real performance of the antenna. Measured and predicted far eld
radiation patterns are also compared.

4.1.3

Paper C: Analysis of Printed Antenna Structures using

the Partial Element Equivalent Circuit (PEEC) Method

In this paper, the partial element equivalent circuit (PEEC) method is illustrated and
applied to printed antenna structures where measurements are compared to simulations
and analytical solutions. The possibility to use simplied PEEC models to decrease
computation time is discussed with illustrative examples. The PEEC method is a full
wave technique for the solution of mixed circuit and eld problems in both the time and
frequency domain.
The international interest for the method has been gaining rapidly for the past years
but in the Nordic countries the research eort has been low. This paper can be considered
as an fundamental introduction to this electromagnetic computation technique.
By using a specialized discretization, the original structure is converted into a network of discrete inductances, capacitances and resistances, called the partial elements.
The partial elements are calculated either by using numerical integration techniques or
simplied closed form equations. The resulting equivalent circuits are solved by using a
commercial circuit simulation program like SPICE. The use of SPICE-like circuit solvers
facilitates the inclusion of discrete components, transmission lines, current/voltage source
etc in the resulting PEEC model.
The PEEC method has been shown to be a very powerful simulation technique for
combined circuit and electromagnetic eld problems. The rst example displays the
possibility to make PEEC models by using closed form equations to calculate the partial
elements and a free version of SPICE as the solver. This feature makes the method

26

Thesis Summary

possible to use in education and for simple design tasks. However, the method require a
retarded circuit solver to be considered a full wave method comparable with a method
of moments solution.
The application of PEECs to antennas is a valuable tool in many areas where antenna
resonance frequencies are of importance. The paper shows that antennas are modelled
with good agreement compared to analytical solutions and measurements.

4.1.4

Paper D: SPICE models of barrier compared to measured

data

SPICE models of electromagnetic zone barrier are devised. The models are based on
data from 2D and 3D Maxwell equation solvers. A transfer impedance approach modelled incident electromagnetic waves in SPICE. Test systems using D-sub connectors,
passive surface mounted lters and encapsulation was designed. Test system verication
measurements were made in a fully anechoic chamber. The coupling through the zone
barriers was measured. Good agreement was found between simulated and measured
data. The focus for electronic system designers is on product functionality. Here EMC
aspects are hard to approach using for the electronic engineer well known tools such as
SPICE.
This work thus focuses on building SPICE models for electromagnetic zone barriers enabling SPICE simulations of incident radiated power and immunity to incoming
disturbances.
SPICE models has been developed for commercially available components that can
be regarded as EMC barriers. Surface mounted lters and shielded connectors and cables
are examples of such components. Models have also been developed for EMC barriers
that appear in a circuit due to the layout of circuit.
The measurement results obtained in the unechoic chamber shows a poor agreement
with the SPICE simulations in the frequency range 30 MHz to 60 MHz where overlapping
data is available. Dierences between 10 and 40 dB in the two congurations is found.
However when comparing with other measurements or by extrapolation of the simulation
results a better agreement is found in the higher frequency range towards 100 MHz.
With the EM clamp injection method a much better agreement is obtained between
the measured system transfer impedance and the SPICE simulation. By combining
measurements for the parts of the system into a complete system transfer impedance
good agreement is obtained with SPICE simulation, in some instances a remaining oset
is found.
The measurements for the desired verication are hard to do with one single approach.
The frequency range for the SPICE simulation was limited by the transfer impedance data
obtained for the coaxial cable shield. It is reasonable to believe that better agreement
would be found if the SPICE simulation could be done at 100 MHz. The deviation
between the obtained results seems to decrease when frequency increases in the frequency
range of this study.

4.1. Summary of Contributions

4.1.5

27

Paper E: Characterization of Conductive Thermoplastic

Composite Materials Using Multiple Measurements Methods

In a study of conductive thermoplastic composite materials, samples were manufactured

and measured. Samples with dierent base polymers, ller materials and dierent amount
of ller made it possible to generate data for many combinations. The samples were
characterized in terms of their complex permittivity and complex permeability, plane
wave shielding eectiveness (SE) and near electric eld shielding eectiveness. As can
be expected materials that shows a relatively high shielding eectiveness for a incident
plane wave also in general oers shielding in the near eld situation that was studied. A
correlation between SE and complex permittivity was also found.
This paper describes the work to compare measurement methods to acquire electromagnetic shielding eectiveness of conductive thermoplastic materials. The frequency
range in this study is 150 MHz to 1 GHz. Three dierent measurement methods are
compared to test the validity of the methods. For the comparison of measurement methods a number of dierent composite materials were analyzed in the study. Data from
three of those are here used for the comparison of the three methods. Measured data
are also compared to give an indication how shielding eectiveness is aected by incident
eld impedance and by the permittivity and permeability of the material.
A measurement method for studying near eld shielding eectiveness was developed.
A battery powered square wave generator with dipole antenna was enclosed in a box made
of the tested material. Several boxes of dierent materials were specially manufactured
for this study. The repeatability for these measurements are very good and the results
presented are from one measurement occasion but the results must of course be regarded
as unique to this test set-up. This is because the shielding material is in close proximity
of the transmitting antenna so that the input impedance of the transmitting antenna
may change when changing material. Also the near eld impedance, that is the relation
of electric eld strength to magnetic eld strength is unknown.
As a second measurement method a modied MIL-STD-285 type method was used.
Measured shielding eectiveness with this far eld method show the same trend in frequency response as the near eld method but with an oset in some cases. When studying
a larger number of dierent materials than presented in this paper, materials that performs well in the plane wave case usually also oers good shielding in the near eld
case.
The third method was to use a loaded coaxial transmission line xture for measurement of complex permittivity and complex permeability. Using traditional techniques
this data can be used for estimation of SE for an innitely large plane electromagnetic
shield. Calculated SE based on measured material properties does not agree well with
measured near eld shielding eectiveness. The largest deviation found in this comparison is almost 20 dB.
By analyzing the measured permittivity and permeability further a large dierence is
found in imaginary permittivity for the materials. The imaginary part of the permittivity
includes the eect of conductivity in the material. The cause of the losses in a dielectric
material is usually that the conductivity is large. In conclusion the thermoplastic ma-

28

Thesis Summary

terials with high imaginary part of the permittivity seem to give an improved shielding
eectiveness compared to materials with small imaginary part of permittivity. The real
part of the permittivity does not correlate well with shielding eectiveness.

4.1.6

Paper F: Shielding Eectiveness Data on Commercial Thermoplastic Materials

Ten dierent commercially available conductive thermoplastic materials have been tested
for near- and far-eld shielding eectiveness. Far eld shielding eectiveness was tested
using a modied standard measurement technique to provide results comparable with
company provided data. Further, housings of the dierent thermoplastic materials was
constructed and equipped with a EMI source to model a realistic near eld shielding eectiveness situation. Shielding eectiveness data up to 1GHz is presented. The conductive
thermoplastic material Faradex XP211 (with lling of stainless steel bre) and RTP EMI
283 (with lling of nickel coated carbon bre) were the two materials oering the best far
eld shielding performance. For near eld shielding, Faradex XX711 and Bekaert BekiShield (both with lling of stainless steel bre) were the two best performing. Faradex
XX711 showed the best combined far eld and near eld shielding results.
One problem that arises for the EMC engineer is to select an encapsulation technique
that oers a desired degree of electromagnetic shielding for a new electronic device. The
manufacturers of dierent conductive ller materials sometimes species the shielding
performance of their material in an application according to standardized measurement
method but deviations from the exact standard often occurs. This makes comparisons
between dierent manufacturers hard. Further the standardized method just give a hint
of what the shielding performance can be for the same material in an electronic device
encapsulation application.
Thus it was decided to evaluate electromagnetic shielding eectiveness for commercially available thermoplastic materials. Ten materials were chosen and samples manufactured for analysis using two measurement methods. This paper describes the composition of the chosen materials, the measurement techniques are discussed, the recorded
results are presented and conclusions from the comparisons are drawn. In some instances
manufacturer data were available for comparison.
This paper describes the composition of the chosen materials, the measurement techniques are discussed, the recorded results are presented and conclusions from the comparisons are drawn. In some instances manufacturer data were available for comparison.
When comparing the near- and far- eld shielding eectiveness for the thermoplastic
materials the following is noted.
Faradex XP211 oer the best far eld shielding eectiveness.
Faradex XX711 and Beki-Shield oer the best near eld shielding eectiveness
knocking the signal from the EMI source (transmitter) down below the noise oor.
Faradex XA611 is the material with the lowest level of shielding eectiveness for
both near- and far- eld.

4.1. Summary of Contributions

29

Faradex XX711 is the best material for the combined shielding eectiveness.
Considering that the near eld shielding measurement imitates the use of material in
an application it is disappointing to se how poor guide the far eld shielding eectiveness
results are when a material selection for an enclosure must be made. In cases where
manufacturer data were available, agreement was quite good with the near eld method
in one instance while the dierence was close to 30 dB in the other three instances.

4.1.7

Paper G: Electromagnetic properties of thermoplastic material for varying temperatures

A thermoplastic material is examined. The complex permittivity and complex permeability are obtained while the temperature is varied from 20 to 60 Celsius. It was
necessary to perform instrument calibration at each temperature to cancel temperature
eects on cables and connectors. The thermoplastic material is used in a laminate with
metallic foil for encapsulation of electronic circuits. The laminated technique oers a
good barrier against moisture and good shielding for electromagnetic energy. To be able
to design stripline transmission lines in the laminate it is necessary to know the electromagnetic behavior of the isolating plastic material. Real part of the relative permittivity
was found to be 2.0 0.1 in the frequency range 100 MHz to 2.5 GHz. This value shows
a very small dependence of temperature changes in the range 20 Celsius to 60 Celsius.
It is of interest to explore the usage of a particular laminated encapsulation material
with integrated antennas in environments with changing temperature. The major problem is to establish a test methodology where temperature eects other than these of the
material under test are suciently suppressed. Thus series of experiments have been conducted to obtain complex permittivity and complex permeability for the thermoplastic
over temperature 20 60 C and frequencies from 100 MHz to 2.5 GHz.
It was found that the material under test have a real relative permittivity of 2.0 at
room temperature (20 C) and it is independent of temperature in the range 20 C to 60 C.
Imaginary relative permittivity was slightly smaller for the material under test than for
polyethylene. The results for the permeability was as expected for the material under
test. The real part of the relative permeability is close to 1 and imaginary part close to
0.
The measurement setup was very sensitive to temperature variations. The rst attempt to cover the temperature range 0 Celsius to 80 C with a single calibration was
insucient. Measurements were then done at three temperature points, 20 , 40 and
60 C, with careful calibration at each temperature to cancel the temperature eects on
the cables and connectors.
The good results from this work led to a patent application for an encapsulation
technique with integrated patch antenna and antenna feed transmission line [44].

30

Thesis Summary

Chapter 5
Conclusions - Suggested Further
Work
This thesis concludes with some reections on achieved results and interesting angles to
be aimed at for further work.
Techniques to generate lumped circuit models for electromagnetic barriers have been
developed and methods have been devised for generating models for transmission like
barriers as well as for barriers with unknown geometrical shape (Papers A and D).
The developed methods have been veried successfully for frequencies up to 1 GHz,
for some barrier models up to 4 GHz. It is desired to nd methodologies that increases
the useful frequency range of the generated models further and that would enable barrier
modeling for addressing electromagnetic shielding for instance in shielding enclosures.
Modeling of printed antenna structures have been done using the Partial Element
Equivalent Circuit (PEEC) method (Paper C). From SPICE computer simulations with
the generated antenna models good agreement is found when comparing with analytical solutions and s-parameter measurements. It would also be of interest to compare
PEEC model simulations of current distributions with measured current distributions
since this is an important step towards barrier modeling including coupling to radiated
elds. A comparison of current distributions on a printed antenna attained by Method
of Moment (MoM) simulations and scanning measurements of magnetic eld distribution
demonstrates this technique (Paper B).
A near eld shielding eectiveness (SE) measurement method has been developed
imitating the use of shielding material in an application (Paper E and F). Measured near
eld SE for conductive thermoplastic materials are compared with results from a far eld
SE measurement method. The measured near eld SE results deviates substantially from
measured far eld SE. Thus it is questioned how useful far eld (plane wave) SE data is
when a material selection for an enclosure must be made.
In a study for characterization of a thermoplastic material in terms of permittivity
and permeability measurements, the temperature dependence of the material parameters
was of interest (Paper G) . It was noted that the measurement cables were very sensitive
to temperature variations. To acquire reliable data instrument calibration were necessary
at each temperature point to cancel the temperature eects on the cables and connectors.
31

32

Conclusions

Further work is desired in the area of EMC barrier characterization and modeling and
could be summarized:
Development of improved lumped circuit model generation techniques to increase
the useful frequency range for generated barrier models.
Work to establish barrier modeling techniques for electromagnetic shielding where
radiating sources are considered. This would enable circuit simulation using SPICE
software to estimate shielding eectiveness of shielding enclosures. Here the transfer
impedance and transfer admittance description of an electromagnetic shield may
be an important approach. PEEC modeling is also an interesting and powerful
technique for this purpose.
Work on PEEC modeling for analysis of current distribution in conductive surfaces
such as patch antennas and PCB ground planes. This is an important step towards the ability to include barriers for electromagnetic eld shielding in circuit
simulation. Near eld scanning measurements of magnetic elds could be used for
verication in such work.
Better methods are desired for specication of electromagnetic shielding materials
since far eld SE measurements may fail to reect the application of a shielding
material in an electronic device enclosure. This may require better understanding
of impedance of radiated eld from a device and electric eld SE and magnetic eld
SE given separately for a shielding material.

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33

34

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Part II

42

Paper A
An Approach to the Generation of
SPICE Models Feasible for EMC
Problems

Authors:
Jan Carlsson and Urban Lundgren

Reformatted version of paper originally published in:

Symposium Record, 2000 IEEE International Symposium On Electromagnetic Compatibility, (Washington, D.C., USA), 2000

c 2000, IEEE, Reprinted with permission.

43

44

Paper A

An Approach to the Generation of SPICE Models Feasible for

EMC Problems
Jan Carlsson

Urban Lundgren

SP Swedish National Testing & Research Institute

Brinellgatan 4
SE-501 15, Bors, SWEDEN

Lule University of Technology

Regnbgsalln
SE-971 87, Lule, SWEDEN

Abstract: A method to describe barriers such as filters, cables,

connectors etc. with circuits consisting of linear discrete
components is presented. The circuit is constructed by viewing
the barrier as a multi-conductor transmission line for which
the per-unit length parameters have to be determined. A
developed two-dimensional finite difference program in which
the cross-section is defined by drawing it using the CAD-like
user interface computes these. For barriers that cannot be
viewed as transmission lines a method for determining
equivalent circuits outgoing from measured S-parameters has
been developed. Derived models have been used in SPICE and
validated by comparison with measurements.

order to describe its electrical characteristics. One example

would e.g. be the barrier between two parallel conductors on a
printed circuit board for which the crosstalk could be
computed with the knowledge of the geometry and the
material properties of the circuit board. The approach that we
have used for these types of barriers is to first determine the
per-unit length parameters and then create a discrete circuit
representation. The circuit can then be used in a standard
circuit simulator such as e.g. SPICE to obtain the desired
responses either in the time or in the frequency domain. The
requirement for this method to be successful is that the barrier
under consideration can be viewed as a multi-conductor
transmission line, i.e. it must have a uniform cross-section
with an extent that is small compared to the wavelength. For
barriers that dont have a uniform cross-section it is sometimes
possible to describe them as a number of cascaded sections
with uniform cross-sections, i.e. a staircase approximation.

Determination of the per-unit length parameters

[C ] =

1k

c13

c 21

2k

c 23

k =1

c 31

c 32

c
k =1

3k

l11

l12

l13

l 31

l 32

l 33

c22dz

c33dz

, [L] = l 21 l 22 l 23

l33dz
3
l23dz

l13dz
2

l12dz
1

ref.
z

For some type of barriers it is sufficient to have knowledge of

the geometrical shape and the material in the cross-section in

c12

k =1

Barriers such as e.g. commercial filters that cannot be viewed

as transmission lines must be treated in another way. In the
method that we have used the first step is to set up a discrete
circuit and then compute the S-parameters. The computed Sparameters are then compared with measured for the
frequency range of interest and the weighted difference is
minimized by adjusting component values. This is done in an
iterative scheme searching among component values in a
given range.

For barriers that can be viewed as multi-conductor

transmission lines the cross-section, which is assumed to be
uniform, is divided into small elements and the Laplace
equation is solved. From the solution the charges on each
conductor can be computed and thereby the per-unit length
inductance and capacitance matrices. When the matrices are
known it is a straightforward task to construct a circuit
representation that can be used in a standard circuit simulator.

Since the approach that we have used is based on multiconductor transmission line theory we have to determine the
per-unit length parameters in order to arrive at the wanted
circuit representation. Looking at the circuit representation of
a short section of a multi-conductor transmission with three
wires (reference not counted), Figure 1, the following relations
between the entries in the per-unit length capacitance and
inductance matrices and the values of the circuit elements can
be found.

When analyzing EMC problems for complex systems it is

necessary to break down the system and characterize each
coupling path or barrier. By describing a barrier with a circuit
consisting of discrete components the propagation of
disturbances in the system can be computed by the use of an
ordinary circuit simulator as e.g. SPICE [1]. However, the
main problem is to find a circuit representation and component
values that describe the behavior of the barrier. Two different
approaches to accomplish this have been used.

Introduction

l22dz

l11dz

c23dz
c12dz

c11dz

c13dz

z+dz

Figure 1 Circuit representation of a short section of a

three-wire transmission line.

The per-unit length parameters can be computed by using

numerical methods such as the method of moments (MoM)
[2], the finite element method (FEM) [3] etc. For some simple
cases it is even possible to use analytical formulas. The
method that we have used is the finite difference method
(FDM) [4, Sec. 3], mainly because it is simple to implement
and that it easily can handle complicated cross-sections with
different materials. For the simple example shown in Figure 2
the dimension of the per-unit length capacitance and
inductance matrices will be two by two, since we have two
conductors and a common reference (the ground plane). For
the general case the ij-element in the capacitance matrix can
be determined by letting the potential on all conductors except
the j:th be equal to zero and evaluating the charge on the i:th
conductor, i.e. [5], C ij =

Qi
Vj

Vm = 0, m j

. Thus, in order to

determine the capacitance matrix for the PCB in Figure 2, we

have to solve the Laplace equation for the configuration two
times with different boundary conditions.

By giving all nodes in the cross-section an initial estimate,

Vi0j , and by scanning through the nodes by an iterative
,
procedure we can determine the potential distribution in the
whole region and thereby are we able to compute the per-unit
length parameters.
Computer code for determining per-unit length parameters
Based on the method for computing the per-unit length
parameters described above a computer code called FD2D was
developed. The code has a Windows user interface where the
cross-section of the barrier easily can be defined by simply
drawing it on the screen, see Figure 5. The code has been
validated against several test cases and the agreement has been
found to be good with previously published results. As an
example of a simple validation the characteristic impedance
for an air coaxial cable with an inner to outer conductor radius
ratio of five was computed using a grid size of 200 by 200
nodes. The computed impedance was 96.85 , which should
be compared to the exact value of 96.57 .

Conductor 2

Conductor 1

Vi,j+1

Reference (ground plane)

Figure 2 Cross-section of a printed circuit board with two

conductors.
The solution of the Laplace equation gives the potential
distribution in the region and we can by applying Gauss law
determine the charge per unit-length on conductor i as:

Vi-1,j

Vi,j

Vi+1,j

B
A

Vi,j-1

Qi = V ndl i where li is a closed line around conductor i,

li

n is an outward directed unit vector and V is the potential

Figure 3 A part of the finite difference mesh.

distribution. The inductance matrix can be computed by the

knowledge of the capacitance matrix for the case when all
material in the cross section is free space, i.e. [6],
[L] = 0 0 [C0 ]1 where [C0 ] is the capacitance matrix when all
dielectric material in the cross section is replaced by free
space. The remaining problem now is to determine the
potential distribution by solving the Laplace equation. By
starting with Maxwells equations for the two-dimensional
electrostatic case and approximating the derivatives with finite
differences we can quite easily write down the following
relation between the potential in neighboring nodes in the
finite difference mesh, see Figure 3.
Vi , j =
+

Vi +1, j ( A + B )

2( A + B + C + D )

Vi , j +1 ( B + C )

2( A + B + C + D )

Vi 1, j ( C + D )

2( A + B + C + D )

Vi, j 1 ( A + D )

2( A + B + C + D )

(1)
Figure 4 Printed circuit board for measurements of
crosstalk between adjacent conductors.

U N E/U g , U FE/U g [dB]

Figure 5 User interface of the finite difference program for determination of per-unit length parameters. In the
example a D-sub connector is analysed.
By defining the length of the analyzed barrier the code is
0
capable of generating a representative SPICE circuit file or
Measured
-10
Computed
computing the scattering parameters (S-parameters) for a
-20
given frequency range. The S-parameters are determined by
-30
first setting up the chain matrix for the analyzed device [7] and
-40
then using relations between the chain matrix and the
Near end
scattering matrix. These relations can easily be found by
-50
Far end
expressing the total voltages and currents in terms of the
-60
scattering voltages and currents, see (2).
Validation against measurements
In order to validate the computed response of a barrier by
using the FD2D program for generating circuit files and then
using them in SPICE a number of measurements have been
conducted. As an example the crosstalk between conductors
on a printed circuit board was analyzed. For the measurement
of near end and far end crosstalk a vector network analyzer
was used to get the scattering parameters from the four-port
made of two adjacent conductors with the length 100 mm
across the circuit board. All four ports were connected to 50
during all measurements. Configurations with different
spacing between the conductors were measured and compared
with simulations on the corresponding circuit models. Also
conductors with a non-uniform cross section along the length
were considered, see Figure 4.

-70
-80
-90
300k

1M

10M

100M

1G

Frequency, Hz

Figure 6 Crosstalk between conductors on a printed circuit

board determined by modeling the barrier as a discrete
circuit compared to measurements.
One example of the agreement between the computed
crosstalk and the measured crosstalk is shown in Figure 6. As
can be seen in the figure the agreement is good up to 1 GHz,
although the resonance frequencies are not accurately
predicted. One reason for this is that in the circuit model
approach that we have used radiation losses are not taken into
account.

For some types of barriers measurement is the only possible

way of characterizing the behavior. For these cases a method
by which it is possible to deduce a network from measured
data has been developed. In this approach we take the
measured S-parameters and compute the same for an assumed
network. The next step is to seek for optimal values for
components in the network so that a best fit, in some respect,
is found. By this procedure the wanted network representing
the measured device can be determined. Of course, the success
of this method is only guaranteed if the assumed network
actually can represent the device under consideration. Thus, a
basic knowledge of circuit theory and some experience are
required.

computed
S-parameters,
i ( f ) .
function Q =

the

-10
-20
-30

i(f)

-40
-50

Com puted
Measured

-70
-80
1M

10M

100M

1G

Frequency [Hz]

Figure 7 Example of computed and measured Sparameter.

1
[B] (Z 0 [C ] + [D])1 [1]
Z0

(Z 0 [C ] + [D])1 (Z 0 [C ] [D])

1
[B]
Z0

1
[B]
Z0

[S 22 ] = [1] + (Z 0 [C ] + [D])1 [A] +

[S21 ] = 2 [1] + (Z 0 [C ] + [D ])1 [A] +

1
[B ] [A] + 1
Z0
Z0

[S12 ] = [1] + [A] + 1 [B ] (Z 0 [C ] + [D])1

Z0
[ A]

minimize

[ A] +

1
[B ] (Z 0 [C ] + [D ])1
Z0

[S11 ] = [1] + [A] +

we

-60

Since measurements with a network analyzer usually gives the

S-parameters of a network it is natural to use these parameters
as the basis for the comparison with the assumed network.
Thus, we have to compute the S-parameters for the network.
This can be done by first computing the chain matrix for the
network and then convert to S-parameters. The relations
between the S-parameters and the chain parameters are:

i.e.

| S 21 | [dB]

Barriers that cannot be viewed as transmission lines

(Z 0 [C ] + [D])1

(Z 0 [C ] + [D])1
(2)

[A] 1 [B] + (Z 0 [C ] [D])

Z0

Figure 8 Printed circuit board for the characterization of

commercial surface mounted filters with three calibration
traces and four different filters.

where [A], [B], [C] and [D] are the usual sub-matrices in the
general chain matrix.
When the S-parameters have been determined for all
frequencies of interest we have to compare the values with
measured S-parameters. Figure 7 shows an example of such a
comparison.
In order to find component values in the network that will
make the network representing the measured device we
minimize the average difference between measured and

In order to validate the method a number of different surface

mounted filters were studied. The filters were placed on a
special circuit board, Figure 8, on which also conductors for
calibrating the network analyzer were present. The
measurement procedure that was used involves calibration to
the footprint of the examined component by a through,
reflection and match calibration method. When the calibration
was done the four S-parameters S11, S21, S12 and S22 for each
surface mounted filter were measured.

Lumped circuit generation for a feed through capacitor filter

For one of the studied commercial filters of the type feed
through capacitor the error function minimization procedure
explained above gave component values to the assumed
network resulting in a lumped circuit model shown in Figure
9. The schematic also shows a 50 generator and a matched
load used when running the SPICE circuit simulation.

lumped circuit model for the filter finally chosen is shown in

Figure 11 together with the generator and load used in
simulation.

R6
2000
C2

R1

1.15pF

R3

R4

50

L2

50

50

2.9uH

R2
5M

V2
L4

R5
50

1V

V1
280PH

1V

C1

220nF

Figure 11 A derived lumped circuit model of a series

inductance filter used in the computation.

Figure 9 A derived lumped circuit model of a feed through

filter used in the computation (note that in SPICE syntax
M or m stands for the prefix milli-).
0

Insertion Loss [dB]

-10

-20

| S21 | [dB]

-30

-40

-20

-40

Filter L1, L m odel

Filter L1, L-C m odel
-60

-80
100k

-60

Computed
Measured

-70

-80
1M

Filter L1, L-C-R model

m easured data

-50

10M

100M

1G

M C3resultD.opj

3G

Frequency [Hz]

Figure 10 Insertion loss for a feed through filter

determined using a circuit model and measurements.
With this developed lumped circuit description of the feed
through capacitor filter the behavior of the filter can easily be
simulated in an electronic circuit simulator such as SPICE. In
Figure 10 the results from a simulation of insertion loss is
shown. For comparison the measured insertion loss for the
commercial filter is shown in the same graph.
Lumped circuit generation for a series inductance filter
A surface mounted series inductor filter was included in the
study. The assumed network for this filter was enhanced
stepwise by adding discrete components one at a time. The

1M

10M

100M

1G

5G

Frequency [Hz]

Figure 12 Insertion loss for a series inductance filter

determined using different circuit models and
measurements.
The different lumped circuit models with increasing
complexity were used when simulating the insertion loss of
the filter in a circuit simulator. The resulting simulated
insertion loss is shown in Figure 12 together with measured
values. As can been seen in Figure 12 the first two attempts to
a network design both failed to agree with measured data at a
frequency close to 100 MHz. The third attempt to choose a
network capable of adapting to the correct behavior was more
successful. After minimizing the error function for this
network a reasonable good fit to the measured insertion loss
was obtained. In this case there is a very good agreement
between the developed lumped circuit model of the filter and
the measurements up to at least 4 GHz.

Conclusions
The developed methods for generating lumped circuit models
for transmission like barriers as well as for barriers with
unknown geometrical shape have been verified against
measurements on prototype printed circuit boards. Good
agreement between SPICE simulation and measurement was
found for frequencies up to 1 GHz. For models of transmission
like barriers the upper frequency limit for good agreement is
depending on the number of cascaded sections in the circuit
model. For the 100 mm parallel conductor crosstalk, an
agreement within a few dB:s up to 1 GHz was achieved with
16 cascaded sections. The method of adapting an assumed
network to measured S-parameters gave an good agreement up
to 1 to 4 GHz when simple networks were assumed. Better
agreement in the high frequency range can of course be
reached by assuming a more complex network.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Lennart Hasselgren at IVF (The Swedish Institute
of Production Engineering Research) for running SPICE
simulations with the generated lumped circuit models.
References
[1] L. W. Nagel, SPICE2: A Computer Program to Simulate
Semiconductor Circuits, Memorandum No. M520, May
1975.
[2] R.F. Harrington, Field computation by moment methods",
Macmillan New York 1968.
[3] P.P. Silvester and R.L. Ferrari, Finite elements for
electrical engineers", 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press,
1990.
[4] Pei-bai Zhou, Numerical Analysis of Electromagnetic
Fields, Springer-Verlag 1993.
[5] R. Laroussi and G. I. Costache, Finite-Element Method
Applied to EMC Problems, IEEE Transactions on
Electromagnetic Compatibility, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 178-184,
May 1993.
[6] C. Wei, R. F. Harrington, J. R. Mautz and T. K. Sarkar.,
Multiconductor Transmission Lines in Multilayered
Dielectric Media, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory
and Techniques, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 439-450, April 1984.
[7] F. M. Tesche, M. V. Ianoz and T. Karlsson, EMC
analysis methods and computational models, John Wiley &
Sons, inc., 1997.

Paper B
A comparison of measured and
simulated current distributions on
a printed log-periodic antenna

Authors:
Stewart Jenvey and Urban Lundgren

Reformatted version of paper originally published in:

Symposium Record, Antenn 00, Nordic Antenna Symposium, (Lund, Sweden), 2000

c 2000, SNRV, Reprinted with permission.

51

52

Paper B

A COMPARISON OF MEASURED AND SIMULATED CURRENT DISTRIBUTION

ON A PRINTED LOG-PERIODIC ANTENNA
Stewart Jenvey* and Urban Lundgren
*Department of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering,
Monash University, Wellington Rd, Clayton, Australia 3168

Systemteknik, Lule Tekniska Universitet,

Universitetsomrdet, Porsn, Lule, Sweden

SUMMARY
This paper describes the use of a position scanned magnetic field probe to investigate the
current distributions on the surface of a log periodic dipole antenna (LPDA) which was
constructed on printed circuit board. Measurements of the magnetic field magnitude and
phase at each point of the scan were used to derive the time variant instantaneous values of
the magnetic field and the instantaneous currents on the LPDA. These were used in the
analysis of the antenna design. The wave nature of the current distribution can be readily
observed and problems with the design such as standing waves on the feeder lines are
highlighted for attention in a revised design. Measured current distributions are compared
with predicted distributions obtained from Method of Moments (MOM) analysis of the LPDA
structure. Measured and predicted far field radiation patterns are also compared.

1. INTRODUCTION
Log periodic dipoles are a common, linearly polarised, broadband type of antenna. The
design, construction and testing of a printed LPDA and the use of magnetic scanning to aid in
optimising the design are discussed in this report.
The antenna examined was made using printed circuit technology so that a prototype could be
quickly created and that subsequent modifications to the design based on the investigations
described herein could be quickly and easily incorporated in the antenna design. New versions
of the prototype antenna could then be quickly and cheaply produced. The basic design
parameters and construction of the printed of the antenna are addressed Section 2.
The use of the printed circuit board to support the radiating elements and to separate the two
strips forming the parallel wire transmission feeder line created a mixed dielectric
environment. Consequently the current distribution on the antenna, and the LPDA impedance
and radiation patterns, are different from those that would exist for a wire LPDA operating at
the same frequencies in a free space environment. These current distributions on the printed
antenna were studied experimentally by examining the magnetic field of the antenna as
described in Section 3. The measurement results are presented in Section 4.
Section 5 discusses the MOM modelling of the LPDA and Section 6 then compares the
measured currents with those predicted by the MOM analysis. The computed and predicted
radiation patterns resulting are also compared.

2. DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE LPDA

The design principles of the LPDA are well established [1, 2]. The LPDA (as shown in Figure
1.) is an array of dipoles connected to a common transmission line fed from the apex of the
array.

Feed

Ln
dn
Xn+1
Xn

Figure 1. A typical LPDA

The geometry of an LPDA is defined in terms of Xn (the distance of the nth dipole in the array
from the array apex), and Ln (the length of the nth dipole), and by the relationships
X
L
= n +1 = n +1
Xn
Ln
dn
2 Ln
which ensures that the structure will thus have impedance and radiation patterns that scale as
f0n , where f0 is a reference frequency. If and are small ( around 0.06-0.22 and in the
range 0.8-0.97) then the impedance and the radiation patterns remain reasonably constant with
frequency over the frequency range in which the shortest to longest elements become halfwave resonant. Values of = 0.8 and = 0.16 were used in this case.

The transmission line from the feed must alternate which side of the line connects to which
side of the dipole in order to get the correct phasing to create an antenna that radiates in the
direction of the array apex. By using double-sided printed circuit board to construct the LPDA
the transmission line could consist of two strip conductors, one on either side of the board. By
putting one half of each dipole on either side of the board and connecting it to the
transmission line strip, and alternating which half dipole went on which side of the board, the
alternating feed connection was obtained (see Figure 2).
Fibreglass board (r = 4.5) 1/16 inch thick was used to construct the LPDA. The required
frequency range of the LPDA was 900 MHz to 3GHz which meant that the dipole elements,
based on a free space wavelength, were of a length that could easily be accommodated on the
200 mm by 300 mm printed circuit board used. The exact resonant length of the individual
dipoles was initially unknown due to the mixed dielectric environment in which the dipole
standing waves exist. The effective dielectric constant for the LPDA transmission line could
be calculated from the formula for the effective wavelength [3] in microstrip of the same track
width and half the dielectric thickness of the board used for the LPDA.

Y
X
Figure 2 The LPDA studied

3. MAGNETIC FIELD DISTRIBUTION MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUE

The magnetic field distribution on the LPDA was measured with the aid of a magnetic probe
(a shielded loop antenna), a coordinate table and a vector network analyzer. The small
magnetic field probe was positioned close to the upper surface of the printed antenna and
moved stepwise in a rectangular grid pattern. The center of the loop probe was about 10 mm
above the surface of the printed antenna. Because the coordinate table surface formed a
metallic ground plane, the probe was attached to an extension arrangement making it possible
to scan the antenna to the side of the table (see Figure 3). This arrangement reduced the
influence of the ground plane.
The LPDA was connected to port 1 of a Vector Network Analyser (VNA) and the loop
antenna was connected to port 2. The LPDA was excited with CW from port 1 of the VNA
and S21 was measured as the loop antenna was scanned in a raster pattern over the surface of
the antenna.
Measurement equipment used:
Rohde & Schwarz ZVR Vector Network Analyzer, frequency range 9 kHz 4 GHz
EMC-scanner, coordinate table manufactured by Detectus AB, Sweden
PC software for controlling coordinate table and network analyzer, made by Detectus AB
903B, 1.0 cm diameter electrically shielded H-field loop probe from EMCO probe set
model 7405
The probe used was a 1 cm diameter loop antenna, with the polarization axis normal to the
plane of the loop, positioned in parallel with the plane of the antenna. In Figure 3 the probe is
X polarized to be sensitive to currents along the dipole. Rotating the loop ninety degrees
about the vertical axis to be Y polarised enabled the probe to respond to currents on the
transmission line joining the dipoles.
The PC software for controlling the coordinate table utilised modified GPIB instruction files
to enable automatic control of the vector network analyzer in order to make the entire
measurement procedure automatic. Between each positional step the magnitude or phase for
signal transmission from the antenna to the probe was measured. Two measurement scans per

polarisation were necessary to obtain both magnitude and phase information (due to
limitations in the control software). The procedure was repeated for each of the X and Y
polarisations of the magnetic field and at each measurement frequency.

Figure 3. Scanning the LPDA using the coordinate table.

4. MANETIC FIELD MEASUREMENT RESULTS

Figure 4 is a three dimensional plot of the X directed magnetic field measured at 1132 MHz
close to the surface of the LPDA. As the tangential magnetic field at the surface of a
conductor is a measure of the current density, Figure 4 therefore graphically shows the current
distribution on the dipoles of the LPDA.

Figure 4 X directed magnetic field at 1132 MHz, close to the LPDA surface
Figure 5 shows a two dimensional contour plot of the X and Y directed components of the
surface magnetic field at 1132 MHz. Dark areas surround the strongest fields. This
corresponds to the current distributions on the dipoles and the feed line respectively.

The measured magnitude of magnetic field at 1.132 GHz

Figure 5(a) X Polarised

Figure 5(b) Y Polarised

5. METHOD OF MOMENTS MODELLING OF THE LPDA

MOM modelling of a wire LPDA in free space is straightforward, but for analysis of this
antenna the MOM package was unable to handle the mixed dielectrics (air and PC board
substrate).
The current distributions on the dipoles are dependent on the antenna near fields that exist in
the mixed dielectric environment. An effective uniform dielectric constant was used with the
MOM program to represent this mixed dielectric environment in order to calculate the current
distributions. The value for this effective dielectric constant was determined from the
magnetic scanning of the LPDA by observing which dipoles of what length went resonant at
which frequency. This gave a value of r = 1.84
The current distributions determined in the MOM analysis were then used to calculate the
radiation patterns assuming r = 1.0 (as the radiation takes place principally in free space).
The match between the measured and predicted radiation patterns is shown in Figure 6.

6. COMPARISON OF MEASURED AND PREDICTED RESULTS

6.1

Far Field Azimuth and Elevation Radiation Patterns

LPDA E Plane Pattern

LPDA H Plane Radiation Pattern

Az-meas
Az-calc

-5
dB

dB

-10

-10

-15

-15

-20

-20

-25

-25

-30
-200

-100

Figure 6

El-meas
El-calc

-5

0
Degrees

-30

100

200 -200

-100

0
Degrees

100

200

E Plane and H Plane radiation patterns of the LPDA at 1132 MHz

The computed and measured E plane and H plane radiation patterns of the LPDA are shown
in Figure 6. There is good agreement between them for the main lobe of the pattern but some
variance is seen between the back lobes. Differences between the actual current distribution
and that derived from the MOM analysis must be resolved to improve this back lobe match.

6.2

Current Distribution on the Dipole Elements

The currents on the individual dipoles are shown in Figure 6. The currents are plotted
normalised and in dB as the surface magnetic fields were measured in relative levels
expressed in dB.

Normalised Current Element 5

Normalised Current Element 3

0

dB

-5

-5

-10

-10

-15

-15

-20

-20
-25

-25
-0.1

-0.05

dB

0
metres

0.05

0.1

-0.08

-0.03

0.02

0.07

metres

Figure 7
Current distributions on two of the dipole elements (Solid-measured, broken-predicted)
The shapes of the current distributions match except for an asymmetry in them which is
assumed to be due to the presence of the co-ordinate table (see Figure 3).
Some of the absolute levels of the individual dipole currents do not correspond well. This may
be due to a non-proportional relationship between the magnetic field strength (measured with
a finite sized loop antenna just above conductors of varying width) and the total current on
that conductor. It is expected that investigations with a smaller loop antenna passed closer to
the surface of the antenna and analysis with other numerical methods (eg Finite Difference
Time Domain) will reveal the reason for this mismatch.

7. CONCLUSIONS
Magnetic scanning of the LPDA has been used in order to get an understanding of the LPDA
operation from its current distributions. The current distributions observed on the prototype
antenna were used to see where problems existed with the design (such as the standing waves
seen on the feed line in Figure 5(b)). They were also used to determine information on the
effective relative dielectric constant to be used in MOM analysis of the antenna and its
radiation characteristics. That the patterns predicted matched reasonably well gives
confidence in this approach.
Observed differences in the magnitude of the measured and computed currents on the dipoles
require further investigation.

8. REFERENCES
1. R. C. Johnson and H. Jasik, Antenna Engineering Handbook, McGraw-Hill, 2nd Ed.,1984.
2. W. L. Stutzman and G. A. Thiele, Antenna Theory and Design, John Wiley and Sons, 2nd
Ed.
3. S. Y. Liao, Microwave Circuit Analysis and Amplifier Design, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey,
1987.

Paper C
Analysis of Printed Antenna
Structures using the Partial
Element Equivalent Circuit
(PEEC) Method

Authors:
Jonas Ekman and Urban Lundgren

Reformatted version of paper originally published in:

Symposium Record, EMB01, (Uppsala, Sweden), 2001

c 2001, SNRV, Reprinted with permission.

59

60

Paper C

Lp

i(t)

Rm

Cp12
Cp11

Cp22

i1
Lp11

i2 _ 1
Lp1 2

Lp2 2

Lp11

i1

i2 _ 1
Lp2 2

Dipole

Place nodes

Inductive partition

Capacitive partition

Combine into complete PEEC model

Paper D
SPICE models of barrier compared
to measured data

Authors:
Urban Lundgren, Jan Carlsson and Jerker Delsing

Reformatted version of paper originally published in:

Symposium Record, 2001 IEEE International Symposium On Electromagnetic Compatibility, (Montreal, Canada), 2001

c 2001, IEEE, Reprinted with permission.

67

68

Paper D

SPICE models of barrier compared to measured data

Urban Lundgren

Jan Carlsson

Jerker Delsing

Lule University of Technology

Regnbgsalln
SE-971 87, Lule, SWEDEN

SP Swedish National Testing & Research Institute

Brinellgatan 4
SE-501 15, Bors, SWEDEN

Lule University of Technology

Regnbgsalln
SE-971 87, Lule, SWEDEN

Abstract: SPICE models of electromagnetic zone barrier are

devised. The models are based on data from 2D and 3D
Maxwell equation solvers. A transfer impedance approach
modeled incident electromagnetic waves in SPICE. Test
systems using D-sub connectors, passive surface mounted
filters and encapsulation was designed. Test system
verification measurements were made in a fully anechoic
chamber. The coupling through the zone barriers was
measured. Good agreement was found between simulated and
measured data.

solution the charges on each conductor can be computed and

thereby the per-unit length inductance and capacitance
matrices. When the matrices are known it is a straightforward
task to construct a circuit representation that can be used in a
standard circuit simulator, see fig. 1.

l33dz
3
l23dz

l13dz
2

Introduction
The focus for electronic system designers is on product
functionality. Here EMC aspects are hard to approach using
for the electronic engineer well known tools such as SPICE.
This work thus focuses on building SPICE models for
electromagnetic zone barriers enabling SPICE simulations of
radiated power and immunity to incoming disturbances. The
datasheets from the manufacturer seldom gives a complete
description of the electrical characteristics of a component.
For instance for a filter the insertion loss is often the only
given performance parameter. To be able to make accurate
SPICE models for a component it is necessary to know the
entire scattering parameter matrix. It is then desired to find a
lumped component circuit with the behavior described by the
S-parameters.
SPICE models has been developed for commercially available
components that can be regarded as EMC barriers. Surface
mounted filters and shielded connectors and cables are
examples of such components. Models have also been
developed for EMC barriers that appear in a circuit due to the
layout of circuit. This includes separation of traces on a
printed circuit.
The modeling approach for the different kinds of barriers have
to by chosen with care to obtain useful data with a limited
amount of effort put in. Here some a priori knowledge is
necessary. A skilled RF designer can from the geometry of a
barrier judge if it can be regarded as a multi-conductor
transmission line (MTL), cascaded MTLs or if a more general
approach has to be chosen.
SPICE model generation techniques
For barriers that can be viewed as multi-conductor
transmission lines the cross-section is divided into small
elements and the Laplace equation is solved [1]. An
assumption is made that the cross-section is uniform. From the

l12dz
1

ref.

l22dz

c23dz

l11dz

c12dz

c11dz

c13dz

c22dz

c33dz
z+dz

Figure 1 Circuit segment representing a multi conductor

transmission line
Barriers with complex or unknown geometry, for instance
commercial filters, cannot be viewed as transmission lines.
Here another method has been used. The S-parameters of the
component are measured using a vector network analyzer. The
next step is to set up a discrete circuit and then compute the Sparameters. The computed S-parameters are then compared
with measured data for the frequency range of interest. The
weighted difference is minimized by adjusting component
values in an iterative scheme, searching among component
values in a given range [1]. To verify the generated SPICE
models results from SPICE simulations were compared with
measurements on the barriers. Good agreement was found [1].
Simulations
For further verification of the generated models a test system
was designed involving several combined barriers and many
connection ports. This made it possible to analyze the system
in many configurations. The test system consists of a
terminated coaxial cable (RG58), a shielded 9-pin D-sub
connector, four parallel traces on a printed circuit board and a
surface mounted filter, fig. 2. The traces on the printed circuit
board were designed as 50 microstrips to minimize
reflections and standing waves in the system causing
unpredictable results in the measurements.

DSUB1
R7
R8
in1
R10
100MEG in2
R20
R21
100MEGin3
100MEG in4
R11
100MEGin5 DSUB9
100MEG in6
100MEG in7
in8
in9

0
R15

50
V1
R14

1V

Filter

0 Track1
in1
in2
in3
inref

R13

100MEG 100MEG
inref

R1
R2
R3
100MEG
R4
R5
100MEG
100MEG
R6
100MEG
100MEG
50

out1
out2
out3
out4
out5
out6
out7
out8
out9

out1
out2
out3
outref

0
0

in1
inref
R16

DPAT3P16

outref

SMA1

Track2

out1
outref

DPAT4P16

R18

R19
50

5m

L1

50

0
0.28n

SMA2

Track3
in1
inref

out1
outref

DPAT4P16

R17

C2

50

220n

Figure 2 SPICE simulation model of the system (the models for the cable and connector shield is not included in this
figure).
Measurements
Two measurement ports on the PCB utilizing SMA connectors
makes it possible to monitor both transmitted signals in a
microstrip and signals in an adjacent microstrip due to
crosstalk on the PCB. Moreover the unused measurement port
can be left open or terminated with matched impedance which
renders 16 different test configurations that has been used in
the comparison.
Using the generated SPICE models of the EMC barriers to
describe the essential electromagnetic behavior of the test
system in a circuit simulation, the different configurations
were analyzed in the frequency domain.

The simulated system was implemented on a PCB and

shielded by a metallic box with the shield connected to the
groundplane of the PCB microstrip lines. The SMA ports of
the PCB were extended to the wall of the box (see fig. 3). A 1
meter RG58 coaxial cable was terminated in the far end in 50
and in the near end connected to 4 different pins of the Dsub in sequence. The outer conductor (shield) of the cable was
in good connection over 360 with the backshell of the
shielded D-sub connector. The shell of the D-sub connector
was then grounded in the shielded box.

To model the coaxial cable shield leakage and D-sub

connector shield leakage the transfer impedance for those
components were used. For the cable the IEC 96-1A standard
was used to obtain transfer impedance values and for the Dsub connector a method was used that is described in [2].

SMA 2

Trace connected to pin 8

SMA 1
Filter

Trace connected to pin 7

Figure 4 Setup of the system inside the unechoic chamber

Figure 3 The test system consisting of a printed circuit
board with parallel traces in a shielded enclosure. A
surface mounted filter is included on one microstrip and a
coaxial cable is via a 9-pin D-sub connected to the PCB.

Measurements were performed inside a fully anechoic

chamber where the excitation of the test system was done with
an incident electromagnetic plane wave (fig. 4). The coupling
from the radiating antenna through the cable and connector
shield and through filters and crosstalk between parallel

microstrips was measured using a vector network analyzer.

The electromagnetic field was generated with a bilog antenna
at a distance of 3 meters from the system. The coupling for the
test system was and compared to the coupling for a single
conductor that replaced the system in the same position.
The lower frequency limit of the antenna is 30 MHz and of
course the corresponding 10 meter wavelength does not give
good far field conditions at the 3 meter antenna distance.
Therefore the lower end of the frequency range in this
measurement should be regarded with some caution.

Again this measurement was repeated for all 16

configurations. A problem with this method is however the
poorly defined input impedance of the current injecting point.
To improve the method an EM clamp was used for injection of
current on the cable shield outer surface, see fig. 6. The
metallic box and the termination of the coaxial cable were is
good contact with the groundplane making a closed loop for
the current. A calibrated current probe was used to monitor the
current and calculations were carried out as described above.

First the coupling between the antenna and the single

conductor was measured as S21single, then the coupling was
measured with the system S21system. Because the incident field
is giving raise to a surface current on the cable shield the
system transfer impedance was calculated by including the 50
measurement system impedance:

Z T _ system =

S 21system 50
S 21sin gle

(1)

The system transfer impedance was obtained for 16

configurations of the system, with the center conductor of the
coaxial cable connected to each of the 4 pins of the D-sub
connected to the traces on the PCB, leaving unused pins open.
For each of these measuring output on SMA1 and SMA2
leaving the unused connector open or with a matched load.
To have better control of the current distribution another
measurement was made according to the sketch in fig. 5. The
source port of the network analyzer connected to the cable
termination causing a direct injection of current on the cable
shield. The current (Iprobe) was monitored using a calibrated
current probe while the cable was positioned at a fix distance
of 20 mm over a groundplane. After measuring the voltage
level at the SMA ports (USMA), the system transfer impedance
is easily calculated as:

Figure 6 Measurement setup were the current injetion was

improved by the use of an EM clamp (the current probe is
missing in this figure).
As a comparison measurement were made on the shielded box
only, including the PCB inside and the D-sub and SMA
connectors. The obtained coupling values were combined with
the transfer function due to the transfer impedance data for the
coaxial cable and D-sub connector shield. This offers another
way to calculate the system transfer impedance.
Results

Z T _ system

U
= SMA
I probe

(2)

Figure 5 Setup for measurement with direct injection of

current onto the cable shield

The measurement results obtained in the unechoic chamber

shows a poor agreement with the SPICE simulations in the
frequency range 30 MHz to 60 MHz where overlapping data is
available. Differences between 10 and 40 dB in the two
configurations shown in fig. 7 and fig. 8. However when
comparing with other measurements or by extrapolation of the
simulation results a better agreement is found in the higher
frequency range towards 100 MHz.
When analyzing the results from the method using direct
current injection there seem to be a resonant behavior at about
25 MHz probably due to the uncertain input impedance at the
current injection point (the far end of the coaxial cable). By
the using the EM clamp for the injection of current smoother
frequency dependence is obtained.

Impedance (dBohm)

System transfer impedance - Dsub pin 7 - SMA 2

0
-10
-20
-30
-40
-50
-60
-70
-80
-90
-100
0.0E+00

SPICE simulation
Direct current injection
EM clamp current injection
Combined transfer functions
Incident plane wave

2.0E+07

4.0E+07

6.0E+07

8.0E+07

1.0E+08

Frequency (Hz)
Figure 7 Comparison of SPICE simulation results and measured data with input on D-sub pin 7 and
output on SMA 2, SMA 1 terminated in 50 ohm

Impedance (dBohm)

System transfer impedance - Dsub pin 8 - SMA 2

0
-10
-20
-30
-40
-50
-60
-70
-80
-90
-100
0.0E+00

SPICE simulation
Direct current injection
EM clamp current injection
Combined transfer functions
Incident plane wave

2.0E+07

4.0E+07

6.0E+07

8.0E+07

1.0E+08

Frequency (Hz)
Figure 8 Comparison of SPICE simulation results and measured data with input on D-sub pin 8 and
output on SMA 2, SMA 1 terminated in 50 ohm

With the EM clamp injection method a much better agreement

is obtained between the measured system transfer impedance
and the SPICE simulation, shown in fig. 7. In fig. 8 the same
comparison is not so good but exhibits an almost constant
offset.
By combining measurements for the parts of the system into a
complete system transfer impedance good agreement is
obtained with SPICE simulation in fig. 8 but a remaining
offset is shown in fig. 7.
Conclusion
The measurements for the desired verification are hard to do
with one single approach. For the measurements with incident
plane wave in the unechoic chamber the problems at 30 MHz
are likely to be caused by the short distance between the setup
and the radiating antenna compared to the wavelength. It may
also be affected by the poor performance of the antenna at this
frequency.
The frequency range for the SPICE simulation was limited by
the transfer impedance data obtained for the coaxial cable
shield. It is reasonable to believe that better agreement would
be found if the SPICE simulation could be done at 100 MHz.
The deviation between the obtained results seems to decrease
when frequency increases in the frequency range of this study.
References
[1] Carlsson J. and Lundgren U., An Approach to the
Generation of SPICE Models Feasible for EMC Problems
, 2000 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic
Compatibility, Washington, D.C., USA, 21-25 Aug, 2000
[2] Van Horck F. B. M., et al, A Rapid Method for
Measuring the Transfer Impedance of Connectors, IEEE
transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility, Vol. 40, No. 3,
pp. 193-200, Aug. 1998

74

Paper E

Paper E
Characterization of Conductive
Thermoplastic Composite
Materials Using Multiple
Measurements Methods

Authors:
Urban Lundgren, Jonas Ekman and Jerker Delsing

Reformatted version of paper originally published in:

Symposium Record, EMC Europe 2002, (Sorrento, Italy), 2002

c 2002, IEEE, Reprinted with permission.

75

76

Paper E

CHARACTERIZATION OF CONDUCTIVE THERMOPLASTIC

COMPOSITE MATERIALS USING MULTIPLE MEASUREMENT
METHODS
Urban Lundgren

Jonas Ekman

Jerker Delsing

EISLAB
Lule University of Technology
971 87 Lule, Sweden
Abstract - In a study of conductive thermoplastic
composite materials, samples were manufactured and
measured. Samples with different base polymers, filler
materials and different amount of filler made it possible
to generate data for many combinations. The samples
were characterized in terms of their complex permittivity
and complex permeability, plane wave shielding
effectiveness and near electric field shielding
effectiveness. As can be expected materials that shows a
relatively high shielding effectiveness for a incident
plane wave also in general offers shielding in the near
field situation that was studied. A correlation between
SE and complex permittivity was also found.
I.

INTRODUCTION

This paper describes the work to compare measurement

methods to acquire electromagnetic shielding
effectiveness (SE) of conductive thermoplastic
materials. The frequency range in this study is 150 MHz
to 1 GHz. It is desired to find a method to establish the
shielding effectiveness for a box encapsulating
electronic equipment. An easy to use measurement
method would allow the study of new material mixtures
and the effect on shielding effectiveness of varying
process parameters. As a tool for the plastic
manufacturing industry this will enable improvement of
electromagnetic shielding effectiveness in plastic
enclosures for electronics. A good method should also
be as simple as possible regarding instrumentation so
that necessary investments to be able to do the
measurement are kept small.
Previously published work related to this problem has
been found in [1] which reviews a large number of
papers and summarizes in four measurement methods.
As a near field measurement methods suitable for
materials with insulative surface standards ASTM-ES-7
and modified MIL-STD-285 are suggested. Those two
methods are also reviewed in [2]. In [2] and [3] two
measurement methods are suitable involving a TEM
cell. However the TEM cell limits the upper frequency
to less than 1 GHz. Another method developed from the
MIL-STD-285 is shown in [4]. This measurement
method is suitable for both near field and far field
measurements. For measurement of permittivity and
permeability on a material, methods were found in [5]

and [6]. The methods are using cavity resonance or

transmission line loading techniques. In [2] a method is
reviewed for estimating shielding effectiveness when
knowing complex permittivity and permeability of a
material.
Three different measurement methods are compared to
test the validity of the methods. For the comparison of
measurement methods a number of different composite
materials were analysed in the study. Data from three
of those are here used for the comparison of the three
methods.
Measured data are also compared to give an indication
how shielding effectiveness is affected by incident field
impedance and by the permittivity and permeability of
the material.
II.
EXPERIMENTAL
MATERIALS

SETUP

AND

The three thermoplastic composite materials used in the

comparison have the base polymers Polycarbonate /
Acrylnitrilbutadienstyren (PC/ABS) or Acrylnitrilbutadienstyren (ABS). The materials used are listed in
Table I.
Table I Materials for which measured data are
presented in this paper
Base polymer
Main additive
PC/ABS
1 vol. % Stainless steel fibre
ABS
1 vol. % Stainless steel fibre
ABS
1.5 vol. % Stainless steel fibre
For each material test samples were made as boxes for
near field SE, square plates for the far field SE
measurement and two smaller rectangular plates for the
permittivity and permeability measurement.
II.1

Shielding of a Electric Near Field Source

This measurement method mimics a shielding enclosure

application by enclosing a radiating dipole with a box
made of the sample material. This method was selected
as reference since it provides the closest match to the
desired application of the shielding material. The main

drawback of this method is the cost of making the boxes

used as test samples and the expensive anechoic
shielded room facility used for the measurement.

80

Because of the desire to evaluate the usefulness of the

materials in an electronic equipment encapsulation
application, near field measurements were made. A high
impedance source generating mainly electric field was
designed and used for measurement of the near field
shielding effectiveness.

50

70

60

40

dBV

30

20

10

If the near field radiation mainly is an electrical field

(high impedance) then conductive thermoplastic
materials are expected to offer better shielding
effectiveness than for mainly magnetic field (low
impedance).

-10

-20
20.0

100.0

1000.0

MHz

Figure 2 Radiated electric field from battery powered

comb generator

Figure 1 Transmitter for near field SE measurements

The battery powered comb generator was constructed
(Fig. 1) with a fundamental frequency of 20 MHz and
does produce strong frequency components well above
2 GHz. In this work the frequency range that have been
used is 150 MHz to 1 GHz. The comb generator alone
were placed on a table in a anechoic room and the
emitted free-space signal spectra at 3 m distance were
measured, see Fig. 2. This measurement data is used as
the baseline in the insertion loss calculation.

Figure 3 Transmitter placed in box made of a

thermoplastic material

A Rohde & Schwarz ESPC EMC/EMI test receiver was

used for this measurement. The instrument causes a step
in the baseline at 500 MHz, this is due to an internal
compensation in the instrument and should not affect the
measured values at the peaks according the
manufacturer. However, even if the levels of the peaks
are affected the step is about 4 dB and this error would
not alter the conclusions in this paper.
The battery powered generator was enclosed in a box of
the sample material with the dimensions 18 x 11 x 12
cm. To be able to access the interior of the box the boxes
were made in two halves, see Fig. 3. To ensure good
seal when closing the box the meeting surfaces were
designed to have a male and female configuration, see
Fig. 4, that offered a wave trap function. The thickness
of the material is 5.0 mm in the bottom and 3.0 mm in
the walls of each half of a box. The wall with thickness
3.0 mm was facing the receiving antenna.

Figure 4 Cross section of box wall showing male

female arrangement to ensure good seal when closing a
box
The emitted signal spectra were measured with the
generator in box located at the same position as in the
baseline
measurement.
Finally,
the
shielding
effectiveness is calculated as the difference between this
measurement and the baseline.
In this method the thermoplastic material is very close to

the signal source like in most shielding applications.

This means that the barrier, the thermoplastic material, is
in the near field of the source and the impedance of the
emitted electromagnetic wave is unknown. The results
from these measurements are therefore unique to this
test set-up and can not be directly applied to other
shielding applications.
II.2
Far Field Shielding Effectiveness
Measurement
Another method was used to measure the plane wave
shielding effectiveness (shielding material located in far
field from radiator). It is implemented in a nested
anechoic chamber set-up, similar to [4]. The test
samples in this case are simple flat slabs but this method
uses an expensive anechoic shielded room facility.

Figure 5 Test set-up for far field measurements

The plane wave shielding effectiveness measurements
were carried out in an anechoic chamber with a
miniature anechoic chamber inside. Samples are fitted
in an aperture in the miniature chamber. The
methodology is similar to that of standards MIL-STD285, IEEE-STD-299 and MIL-G-83528B. In this
improved set-up both the primary and secondary
chamber are fully anechoic.
A miniature anechoic chamber is located inside a large
anechoic chamber with 3 meter measurement distance,
see Fig. 5. The miniature chamber is a cube of brass
with the sides 0.6 meter. It is lined on all inside surfaces
with ferrite tiles that absorbs radio frequency
electromagnetic fields and reduces reflections. A top
loaded monopole antenna is used as receive antenna and
is mounted over a 20 x 20 cm ground plane. This
arrangement is located in the centre of the cube. The
transmit antenna located in the larger chamber 3 meters
from the aperture wall of the cube is a wideband
CHASE bilog antenna often used for EMC testing.
The attenuation of electromagnetic plane waves is
measured as the insertion loss when closing an aperture
with a test sample. The aperture size is 90 x 90 mm
corresponding to the sample size of 95 x 95 mm. The
shielding effectiveness is obtained as the difference
between the antenna coupling with open aperture and

the antenna coupling with a sample fitted in the

aperture. The samples were squeezed between the wall
of the brass cube and a 20 x 20 cm brass frame with a
90 x 90 mm aperture. Between the sample and the
metallic surfaces a fabric over foam conductive gasket
was used.
A Rohde & Schwarz ZVR vector network analyzer was
used in conjunction with an Amplifier Research power
amplifier to measure the attenuation in the transmission
between the antennas. The frequency range was chosen
to 150 MHz to 1 GHz because of the restrictions
induced by the small aperture and limitations of the
power amplifier used.

Figure 6 Dynamic range for far field SE measurement

test setup
The useful dynamic range for this set-up was
investigated by first measuring a baseline attenuation
with the aperture open. Then closing the aperture with a
5 mm thick brass plate and using conductive tape to seal
thoroughly around the plate. The attenuation was
measured again and the insertion loss was calculated as
the difference between this reading and the baseline. The
dynamic range is more than 50 dB in the chosen
frequency range, see Fig. 6.
II.3
Transmission line technique for complex
permittivity and permeability measurements
The third method offers a compact way to estimate the
shielding effectiveness by theoretical calculations based
on measured complex permittivity and complex
permeability. This is the least costly method in terms of
sample preparation and test facility. The complex
permittivity and complex permeability were measured
indirectly using the transmission line technique
described in [6].
The transmission line was constructed using two coaxial
cables with characteristic impedance, Z0 = 50
connected to a rectangular metallic housing as seen in
Fig. 7. The metallic housing impedance, ZL, is 50
when the medium between the center conductor and the

housing is air (see Fig. 8) and is thereby matched to the

coaxial cables.

r =

k 1 R

k0 1 + R

(1)

r =

k 1+ R

k0 1 R

(2)

where

k 0 = 0 0

2
2
cos 1 e j 4 k0l + S12 S11
t
S
R = j 2 k0l 11 jkt
e
S12 e

k=

Figure 7 Transmission line fixture for r and r

measurements

(3)

(4)

(5)

To verify this technique, measurements on polyethylene

were performed. In Fig. 10 the real part of relative
permittivity r for polyethylene is shown. The dotted
lines indicates the published constant value r = 2.25 for
Re{r} [7]. The measured values differs from the correct
by 7%.
3.5

2.5

Figure 8 Unloaded test fixture

2
Re{e r}
1.5

0.5

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

GHz

Figure 10 Real part of permittivity for polyethylene

Figure 9 Test fixture loaded with Polyethylene

The transmission line fixture was loaded with test
samples resulting in a change in characteristic
impedance, ZL, proportional to the material properties.
The dimensions of the test samples were t x 43 x 0.48
mm where t was 20 mm and 40 mm and represents the
length along the propagation direction in the
transmission line. The samples are mounted in the
fixture in pairs with one on each side of the flat center
conductor. See Fig. 9. The change in ZL introduces
reflections in the transmission line structure that was be
measured using a Rohde & Schwarz ZVR vector
network analyzer. From the measured scattering
parameters, S11 and S12, the complex properties are
calculated (1) (5). For a complete theoretical
derivation, see [3].

The measured data of the permittivity and permeability

is used to calculate theoretical plane wave shielding
effectiveness for an infinite flat shield. Since the
reference case in this comparison is the near field
shielding with a box a thorough theoretical model
would be too complex and the assumptions is made that
this simplified case is a good approach. The total
shielding effectiveness is the sum of absorption (A) ,
reflection (R) and correction (B) also called re-reflection
loss. See (6) (9) found in [2]:

SE = A + R + B dB

(6)

where

A = 0.1285 r ( r r ) dB

R = 20 log10 r dB
4

2l
B = 20 log 1 e , = j 0.021 f r dB

(7)
(8)
(9)

The re-reflection loss B corrects for the multiple

reflections inside the barrier and is always a negative
value since re-reflections degrade SE. This term is very
small and have been neglected in the calculations.
III.

RESULTS

Data from the three methods were collected and are here
shown for the three sample materials in Fig. 11, 12 and
13.
In Fig. 11, 12 and 13 the stars shows near field shielding
effectiveness of an electric field source. In the figures,
the stars indicates the insertion loss at frequencies where
peaks were present in the transmitter free-space signal
spectra (Fig. 2). The repeatability for these
measurements are very good and the results presented
are from one measurement occasion but the results must
of course be regarded as unique to this test set-up. This
is because the shielding material is in close proximity of
the transmitting antenna so that the input impedance of
the transmitting antenna may change when changing
material. Also the near field impedance, that is the
relation of electric field strength to magnetic field
strength is unknown.

Figure 12 ABS with 1% Stainless steel

Figure 13 ABS with 1.5% Stainless steel

200

160

Figure 11 PC/ABS with 1% Stainless steel

120

The results for the far field shielding effectiveness

measurements are presented as solid lines in Fig. 11, 12
and 13 for the different thermoplastic materials. The
results are for 3 mm thick sample plates and are
averaged results for 4 measurement occasions performed
over a period of 2 weeks.
The dotted lines in Fig. 11, 12 and 13 shows the
calculated shielding effectiveness values based on
measured permittivity and permeability for the different
thermoplastic materials.
For the materials used in Fig. 11 and Fig. 12 the
measured imaginary part of the permittivity is shown in
Fig. 13 and Fig. 14, respectively.

80

40

0
100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

Frequency /MHz

Figure 14 Imaginary part of the measured complex

permittivity for PC/ABS with 1% Stainless steel

permittivity, see Fig. 14 and Fig. 15, for the materials.

The imaginary part of the permittivity includes the effect
of conductivity in the material. The cause of the losses
in a dielectric material is usually that the conductivity is
large [7].

60

40

In conclusion the thermoplastic materials with high

imaginary part of the permittivity seem to give an
improved shielding effectiveness compared to materials
with small imaginary part of permittivity. The real part
of the permittivity can not alone be correlated to a good
SE.

20

V.

REFERENCES

0
100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

Frequency /MHz

Figure 15 Imaginary part of the measured complex

permittivity for ABS with 1% Stainless steel
IV.

DISCUSSION

Measured shielding effectiveness with the far field

method show the same trend in frequency response as
the near field method but with an offset in some cases.
When studying a larger number of different materials
than presented in this paper, materials that performs well
in the plane wave case usually also offers good shielding
in the near field case. The largest deviation found in this
comparison is about 20 dB (Fig. 11). This could indicate
the effect of the incident field impedance on SE.
However the deviation would then be expected to be in
the opposite, that is a larger value of SE were expected
for near field SE than for far field SE indicating
expected good electric field shielding. Calculated
shielding effectiveness based on measured material
properties does not agree well with measured near field
shielding effectiveness. The largest deviation found in
this comparison is almost 20 dB (Fig. 12).
In conclusion the measurement of material properties
does not give good information on near field shielding
effectiveness (SE). Further the approach of far field
measurement agrees well in most cases but deviations
with no reasonable explanation are found.
The base PC/ABS offers 8 dB to 10 dB better far field
SE than the pure ABS base with vol. 1% stainless steel
fibre as the additive. This is also supported by calculated
shielding effectiveness for an infinite flat shield based
on the measured electrical properties. For the near field
case, no noticeable difference can be seen.

[1] Mottahed B. D., Manoochehri S., "A review of

materials, modeling and simulation, design factors,
testing, and measurements related to electromagnetic
interference shielding", Polymer-Plastics Technology
and Engineering, vol. 34, no. 2, p. 271-346, Mars 1995,
ISSN: 0360-2559
[2] Rahman H., Saha P.K., Dowling J. and Curran T.,
Shielding effectiveness measurement techniques for
various materials used for EMI shielding, IEE
Colloquium on Screening of Connectors, Cables and
Enclosures Digest No.012, London, p. 9/1-9/6 of 68,
1992
[3] Wilson P. F., Ma M. T., Techniques for measuring
the shielding effectiveness of materials, IEEE EMC
Society Symposia Records, p. 547-552, 1987
[4] Bodnar D. G., Denny H. W., Jenkins B. M.,
Shielding effectiveness measurements on conductive
plastics, IEEE EMC Society Symposia Records, 1979,
pp. 27-33.
[5] Bush G.G., Measurement techniques for
permeability, permittivity and EMI shielding: a review,
IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic
Compatibility, 1994. Symposium Record., pp. 333
339, 22-26 Aug. 1994, Chicago, USA, ISBN: 0-78031398-4
[6] Barry W., A Broad-Band, Automated, Stripline
Technique for the Simultaneous Measurement of
Complex Permittivity and Permeability, IEEE Trans.
on MTT, vol. 34, no. 1, Jan. 1986, pp. 80-84.
[7] Liao S. Y.,Engineering Applications of
Electromagnetic Theory, West Publishing Company,
St. Paul, USA, ISBN: 0-314-60175-9

The difference in calculated shielding effectiveness

(dotted lines) between Fig. 11 and Fig. 12 can be
explained by studying the properties of the materials. By
analyzing the measured permittivity and permeability
further a large difference is found in imaginary

Paper F
Shielding Eectiveness Data on
Commercial Thermoplastic
Materials

Authors:
Urban Lundgren, Jonas Ekman and Jerker Delsing

Reformatted version of paper originally published in:

Submitted to Electromagnetic Compatibility, IEEE Transactions on

c 2004, IEEE, Reprinted with permission.

83

84

Paper F

Shielding Effectiveness Data

on Commercial Thermoplastic Materials
U. Lundgren, J. Ekman, J. Delsing
EISLAB
Lule University of Technology
a
Lule , SE-971 87
a
Sweden

Abstract Ten different commercially available conductive

thermoplastic materials have been tested for near- and fareld shielding effectiveness. Far eld shielding effectiveness was
tested using a modied standard measurement technique to
provide results comparable with company provided data. Further,
housings of the different thermoplastic materials was constructed
and equipped with a EMI source to model a realistic near eld
shielding effectiveness situation. Shielding effectiveness data up
to 1GHz is presented. The conductive thermoplastic material
Faradex XP211 (with lling of stainless steel bre) and RTP
EMI 283 (with lling of nickel coated carbon bre) were the
two materials offering the best far eld shielding performance.
For near eld shielding, Faradex XX711 and Bekaert BekiShield (both with lling of stainless steel bre) were the two
best performing. Faradex XX711 showed the best combined far
eld and near eld shielding results.

I. I NTRODUCTION
Shielding effectiveness data of commercially available conductive thermoplastic materials are seldom published other
than in product specication from the manufacturer. Also
different manufacturers uses different measurement methods
which makes comparisons hard.
For encapsulating electronic devices, boxes of metal sheets
have earlier been used. During the last two decades, plastic
materials have replaced metal in encapsulation. The last couple
of years, internal clock frequencies in electronic circuits have
increased to more than 1 GHz. This makes it important to
control emitted radio frequency electromagnetic emissions.
Also circuits must be protected from electromagnetic energy
in its environment. This is made by including lters in the
circuit design and to use encapsulation with electromagnetic
shielding capabilities.
There are a number of methods available to make encapsulations of plastic materials offering some degree of
electromagnetic shielding [7]. Those include surface treatment
of non conductive plastic such as conductive paint, vacuum
metallization etc. Another method is to mix conductive particles into the plastic before the encapsulation product is formed.
A great advantage with this method is that the number of
production steps are reduced.
One problem that arises for the EMC engineer is to select
an encapsulation technique that offers a desired degree of
electromagnetic shielding for a new electronic device. The
manufacturers of different conductive ller materials sometimes species the shielding performance of their material in

an application according to standardized measurement method

but deviations from the exact standard often occurs. This
makes comparisons between different manufacturers hard.
Further the standardized method just give a hint of what the
shielding performance can be for the same material in an
electronic device encapsulation application.
To measure plane wave shielding effectiveness for a small
sample of a material several methods are published [4] and
[5]. A circular split coaxial transmission line (anged coaxial holder) is described in the standard ASTM-D4935. This
method is often referred to by conductive composite material
manufacturers. A problem with this kind of measurement
method is that it seldom reects the real situation. When a
material is used in an enclosure for an electronic device it is
usually exposed to a different electromagnetic eld condition
than in the standardized test method.
Thus it was decided to evaluate electromagnetic shielding
effectiveness for commercially available thermoplastic materials. Ten materials were chosen and samples manufactured for
analysis using two measurement methods. This paper describes
the composition of the chosen materials, the measurement
techniques are discussed, the recorded results are presented
and conclusions from the comparisons are drawn. In some
instances manufacturer data were available for comparison.
II. P RESENTATION OF T HERMOPLASTIC M ATERIALS
This paper presents measurements on ten thermoplastic
materials. The raw materials was bought from three large
manufacturers and prepared according to manufacturer instructions. Materials from the following manufacturers were
selected.
Manufacturer LNP Engineering Plastics, Inc offers Faradex
[1] compounds that combine thermoplastics, ABS, PC/ABS,
PC, and PP, with stainless steel bres in relatively low concentrations. The materials are typically used for EMI protection
(housing) of electronic components/systems including LAN
connection boxes and credit card payment devices. The following materials were used:
XA711 Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene (ABS) with
stainless steel content of 1.5%-vol. corresponding to
10%-wt, contains ame retardant.
XP211 Polypropylene (PP) with stainless steel content of
1.5%-vol. corresponding to 12%-wt.

XX711 Polycarbonate (PC) with stainless steel content

of 1.5%-vol. corresponding to 9%-wt, contains ame
retardant.
XC711 Polycarbonate/Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene
(PC/ABS) with stainless steel content of 1%-vol.
corresponding to 7%-wt, contains ame retardant.
XA611 Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene (ABS) with
stainless steel content of 1%-vol. corresponding to 7%wt, contains ame retardant.

Manufacturer RTP Company [2] offer different kinds of plastic products to match specic applications demanding EMI
shielding, high temperature protection, and wear durability.
Typically, carbon bre, stainless steel ber, or nickel coated
carbon bre are used in a thermoplastic matrix to provide the
necessary shielding. The following materials were used:

EMI 2583 C FR Polycarbonate/Acrylonitrile-ButadieneStyrene (PC/ABS) with nickel coated carbon bre content
of 20%-wt, contains ame retardant.
EMI 162 Polypropylene (PP) with stainless steel bre
content of 15%-wt.
EMI 330 F FR Polycarbonate (PC) with stainless steel
bre content of 15%-wt, contains ame retardant.
EMI 283 NYLON-6,6 Polyhexamethylene-adipamide
(PA) with nickel coated carbon bre content of 20%-wt.

Manufacturer Bekaert [3] offer a stainless steel bre (BekiShield) that is used as ller for electrically conductive plastics.
The chopped bres are bound together with polymeric binders
specic for various polymer resins. For the test Beki-Shield
was mixed in Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene (ABS) with a
bre content of 15%-wt.

III. S HIELDING E FFECTIVENESS M EASUREMENT

T ECHNIQUES
For the measurement of electromagnetic shielding effectiveness various techniques are offering different dynamic ranges
in different frequency intervals. A number of standardized
methods exists, however in practical use tailor made test
xtures often deviates from the design in standards which
makes measured data specic to the modied xture and
comparisons becomes less signicant. Also the demands on
preparation of test samples may inuence when choosing
method of measurement.
We have chosen to use two measurements methods where
the rst method (A) is a far eld shielding measurement that
is based on standardized methods. The second measurement
method (B) is a generic approach to totally encapsulate a
transmitter in its near eld with the material under test. The
intention with this second method is to resemble an application
of the material where it is used for the encapsulation of a
working electronic device. A comparison have been made
between the far eld shielding effectiveness measurement
method and the application imitating near eld method [6].

A. Far eld shielding effectiveness measurements, modied

MIL-STD 285 Type Measurement
The foundation of shielding effectiveness measurements has
earlier been the American military standard MIL-STD-285
from 1956 (now withdrawn) [4], [7] and [8]. The method uses
two shielded rooms with one common wall. This wall has an
aperture were test objects can be placed. The transmitter and
receiver antenna is located in separate rooms, directed towards
each other at a x distance. The transmitter is transmitting at
constant power and the receiver measure the transferred power
with and without test object mounted in the aperture. The
difference between these measurements is the insertion loss
(IL) for the test object. Measurements according to MIL-STD285 have been used to examine new shielding materials like
conducting composites and performance of conducting gaskets. Drawbacks with the method are that measured insertion
loss is dependent on the antenna placement and orientation and
the reections of the electromagnetic wave inside the shielded
rooms [9].
Improved versions of the method in MIL-STD-285 have
developed were the problems with reections have been minimized. A proposed method [10] involves a box, with absorbers
on the inside walls, containing the transmitting antenna. There
is an aperture in one wall of the box where test objects
can be mounted. The box is placed in an anechoic shielded
room together with the receiving antenna. The insertion loss
is determined in the same manner as above. This improved
method have been used in this paper for the far eld shielding
effectiveness measurements with the modications that the
receiving antenna is placed inside the box and the transmitting
antenna in the room outside the box. Also the box aperture
and sample holder has been adapted to the material samples
available to us.
New improved versions of the method in MIL-STD-285
can also be found in the standards IEEE-STD-299 from 1991
and MIL-G-83528B from 1992. Frequency range from a few
MHz to many GHz, dynamic range about 50dB [4]. Usually
measurements are done in the range 200 MHz to 18 GHz. In
this paper to characterize the far eld shielding effectiveness
for the ten different conductive thermoplastics we used the
method described below.
Inside an anechoic shielded room a brass box containing
the receiver antenna is placed on a wooden table. The box
is damped inside with ferrite tiles and has a 90 x 90 mm
aperture on one side. The aperture size is determined by the
thermoelectric material sample size which is 95 x 95 mm.
A transmitting antenna were placed three meters from the
aperture and the receiver antenna measured the transmitted
power with and without a thermoplastic material in the aperture. The shielding effectiveness for that specic thermoplastic
material is then calculated as the difference between these two
measurements.
The frequency range for this test set-up is 150-1000 MHz.
The lower frequency limit is set to ensure far eld conditions
at the front of the metallic box and by the aperture size.

Fig. 2.
Fig. 1.

Transmitter placed in box made of a thermoplastic material.

Dynamic range for far eld SE measurement test set-up.

80

70

This aperture acts like a wave guide and attenuates the electromagnetic eld under a specic cut-off frequency resulting
in measurement problems and a reduced dynamic range for
lower frequencies. The upper frequency limit is set to 1000
MHz by the upper frequency limit for the transmitter power
amplier. The transmitting antenna was a Chase 6112B BiLog.
The dynamic range for the test set-up can be seen in Figure
1 and is over 50 dB for all frequencies. The main drawback
for this set-up is the small aperture size, only 90x90mm. The
dynamic range could be increased and the lower frequency
limit could be decreased if a bigger aperture could be used,
however larger material samples would then be required. Other
suggestions for improving the technique can be summarized
as follows:
better cables connecting the measurement receiver and
the receiver antenna offering a higher level of shielding
against the radiated incident eld,
improved sample holder design to simplify mounting of
test sample with repeated measurements.
B. Near eld shielding effectiveness measurements, application specic measurement
The second method used a more realistic test set-up to
characterize the shielding effectiveness for the different thermoplastic materials. A battery powered transmitter, is enclosed
in a 18 x 11 x 12 x cm box, see Figure 2, made out of the
different materials. The transmitter were placed on a table in a
anechoic room and the emitted free-space signal spectra at a 3
m distance were measured, see Figure 3. Then, the transmitter
were enclosed in a box, made of each material and the
emitted signal spectra were measured. The boxes were made
of two halves joined together with a slit. Finally, the shielding
effectiveness is calculated as the difference between these two
measurements. In this case the thermoplastic material is very
close to the signal source like in most shielding applications.
Meaning that the barrier, the thermoplastic material, is in the
near eld of the source and the nature, high or low impedance,

60

50

40

dBV

30

20

10

-10

-20
20.0

100.0

1000.0

MHz

Fig. 3.

Radiated electric eld from battery powered transmitter.

of the emitted electromagnetic wave is unknown. This means

that the results from these measurements are unique to this
test set-up and can not be directly applied to other shielding
applications. The low level of output power from the battery
powered transmitter give an undesired consequence of small
dynamic range for this method. The measured data from this
method presented in this paper cover the frequency interval
200 MHz to 800 MHz. Above 800 MHz the output power
was not sufcient.
IV. R ESULTS
A. Measurement results
The results from the two different measurements are displayed in parallel in Figures 4 to 13.
The measurements shows clearly the different materials
shielding effectiveness, from 17 dB to more than 50 dB for
some materials. Four of the ten materials offer a far eld
shielding effectiveness of better than 40 dB in the entire
frequency range.
Among these materials, the near eld shielding effectiveness
differs signicantly. All of the curves shows an increased SE
for higher frequencies and the reason can be the test set-up

50

40

30

20

10

0
0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

Far field S E
Near field S E

60

0.6
0.7
Frequency (GHz)

0.8

0.9

Fig. 5.
Measured shielding effectiveness for Faradex XP211. Shielding
effectiveness data for plane wave shielding is shown with circles. The results
for near eld shielding effectiveness of an electric eld source is shown with
lled circles.

50
S hielding effectivenes s (dB)

Far field S E
Near field S E

60

S hielding effectivenes s (dB)

and the small aperture size. As can be seen in Figure 1 the

dynamic range for the set-up is also increasing with frequency.
The measurement accuracy for the far eld shielding effectiveness measurements is hard to estimate because only two
measurements were made for each material sample. Deviations
of up to 6 dB was observed when measurements was
repeated. This random error may to some part be a explained
by non repeatable effects from the mounting of the test
samples over the aperture. Other problems with this type of
measurement method is also known [9]. A bias error of 2
dB is expected in this measurement. The measurements was
not repeated enough to do a proper statistical analysis of the
distribution of the measurement results because the sample
holder was demanding to work with.

40
70

30

10

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6
0.7
Frequency (GHz)

0.8

0.9

S hielding effectivenes s (dB)

20

0
0.2

Manufacturer data

60

50

40

30
Far field S E
Near field S E
20

Fig. 4.
Measured shielding effectiveness for Faradex XA711. Shielding
effectiveness data for plane wave shielding is shown with circles. The results
for near eld shielding effectiveness of an electric eld source is shown with
lled circles.

B. Comparison with manufacturer data

Manufacturer data for some thermoplastics can be found at
the manufacturers webpages.
For Faradex XX711 (3 mm thick sample), the far eld
shielding effectiveness is reported by manufacturer to be 50 to
65 dB using the ASTM D4935 test method [1]. The frequency
range is unspecied but 1 MHz to 1.8 GHz is a typical
range for this method [4]. The measured far eld shielding
effectiveness data presented in this paper lies in the span 40
to 48 dB for a 3 mm thick sample in the frequency range 200
MHz to 1 GHz.
For RTP EMI 2583 C FR (0.120 inch thick corresponding
to 3.05 mm), the far eld shielding effectiveness is reported
by manufacturer to be 42-50 dB using ASTM D4935 test
method [2]. The frequency range is 100 MHz to 1.5 GHz.
The measured far eld shielding effectiveness data presented
in this paper lies in the span 35 to 49 dB for a 3 mm sample
in the frequency range 200 MHz to 1 GHz.
For RTP EMI 283 (0.110 inch thick corresponding to
2.79 mm), the far eld shielding effectiveness is reported

10

0
0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6
0.7
Frequency (GHz)

0.8

0.9

Fig. 6.
Measured shielding effectiveness for Faradex XX711. Shielding
effectiveness data for plane wave shielding is shown with circles. The results
for near eld shielding effectiveness of an electric eld source is shown with
lled circles.

by manufacturer to be 26-30 dB using ASTM D4935 test

method [2]. The frequency range is 100 MHz to 1.5 GHz.
The measured far eld shielding effectiveness data presented
in this paper lies in the span 40 to 53 dB for a 3 mm sample
in the frequency range 200 MHz to 1 GHz.
Beki-Shield is stated by the manufacturer Bekaert to offer
more than 60 dB electromagnetic shielding effectiveness in
the frequency range 30 MHz to 1 GHz [3]. This value is
corresponding to a conductive composite with 15% stainless
steel bre content (the Beki-Shield material). The test method
and sample thickness are not specied. The measured far eld
shielding effectiveness data presented in this paper lies in the
span 33 to 38 dB for a 3 mm sample in the frequency range

Far field S E
Near field S E

60

50
S hielding effectivenes s (dB)

S hielding effectivenes s (dB)

50

40

30

Manufacturer data
40

30

20

20

10

10

0
0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6
0.7
Frequency (GHz)

0.8

0.9

0
0.2

Fig. 7.
Measured shielding effectiveness for Faradex XC711. Shielding
effectiveness data for plane wave shielding is shown with circles. The results
for near eld shielding effectiveness of an electric eld source is shown with
lled circles.

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6
0.7
Frequency (GHz)

0.8

0.9

Fig. 9. Measured shielding effectiveness for RTP EMI 2583 C FR. Shielding
effectiveness data for plane wave shielding is shown with circles. The results
for near eld shielding effectiveness of an electric eld source is shown with
lled circles.

Far field S E
Near field S E

60

Far field S E
Near field S E

60

50

50
S hielding effectivenes s (dB)

S hielding effectivenes s (dB)

Far field S E
Near field S E

60

40

30

40

30

20

20

10

10

0
0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6
0.7
Frequency (GHz)

0.8

0.9

0
0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6
0.7
Frequency (GHz)

0.8

0.9

Fig. 8.
Measured shielding effectiveness for Faradex XA611. Shielding
effectiveness data for plane wave shielding is shown with circles. The results
for near eld shielding effectiveness of an electric eld source is shown with
lled circles.

Fig. 10.
Measured shielding effectiveness for RTP EMI 162. Shielding
effectiveness data for plane wave shielding is shown with circles. The results
for near eld shielding effectiveness of an electric eld source is shown with
lled circles.

200 MHz to 1 GHz.

Considering that the near eld shielding measurement imitates

the use of material in an application it is disappointing to se
how poor guide the far eld shielding effectiveness results are
when a material selection for an enclosure must be made. In
cases where manufacturer data were available, agreement was
quite good with the near eld method in one instance while
the difference was close to 30 dB in the other three instances.
Polymers with a 20% ll of nickel coated carbon bre
performs similar to polymers with 15% ll of stainless steel
in far eld measurement. Choice of base polymer seem to
inuence the performance of the conductive plastic material.
Particularly the ABS base polymer gave lower far eld shielding effectiveness values that other base polymers with the same
amount of conductive ller.

V. C ONCLUSIONS
When comparing the near- and far- eld shielding effectiveness for the thermoplastic materials the following is noted.
Faradex XP211 offer the best far eld shielding effectiveness.
Faradex XX711 and Beki-Shield offer the best near eld
shielding effectiveness knocking the signal from the EMI
source (transmitter) down below the noise oor.
Faradex XA611 is the material with the lowest level of
shielding effectiveness for both near- and far- eld.
Faradex XX711 is the best material for the combined
shielding effectiveness.

Far field S E
Near field S E

60

Manufacturer data
60

50
S hielding effectivenes s (dB)

S hielding effectivenes s (dB)

50

40

30

40

30
Far field S E
Near field S E

20

20

10

10

0
0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6
0.7
Frequency (GHz)

0.8

0.9

Fig. 11. Measured shielding effectiveness for RTP EMI 330 F FR. Shielding
effectiveness data for plane wave shielding is shown with circles. The results
for near eld shielding effectiveness of an electric eld source is shown with
lled circles.
Far field S E
Near field S E

60

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6
0.7
Frequency (GHz)

0.8

0.9

Fig. 13. Measured shielding effectiveness for Beki-Shield. Shielding effectiveness data for plane wave shielding is shown with circles. The results for
near eld shielding effectiveness of an electric eld source is shown with
lled circles.

eld shielding effectiveness in respect to the stainless steel

ller percentage. The reason for this have not been studied.
Compared to the far eld shielding effectiveness the material containing Beki-Shield stainless steel bre performed
relatively well in near eld shielding effectiveness. The reason
for this have not been studied but may be caused by ununiform
bre distribution in mould.

50
S hielding effectivenes s (dB)

0
0.2

40

30
Manufacturer data

R EFERENCES
20

10

0
0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6
0.7
Frequency (GHz)

0.8

0.9

Fig. 12.
Measured shielding effectiveness for RTP EMI 283. Shielding
effectiveness data for plane wave shielding is shown with circles. The results
for near eld shielding effectiveness of an electric eld source is shown with
lled circles.

In this study only the Beki-Shield material was mixed

when the plastic samples was produced, all other were premixed compounded grains. This fact may have caused that
poor bre distribution in mould was achieved and give some
explanation why poor far eld results were observed for the
Beki-Shield material. The RTP EMI 162 material showed
lower shielding effectiveness performance that expected when
compared to other materials with same base polymer and
amount of conductive ller. The reason for this is unclear and
have not been studied.
Materials containing stainless steel bres shows better near
eld shielding effectiveness than materials with nickel coated
carbon bre even though stainless steel bre ller percentage is
lower. The material RTP EMI 162 show unexpected poor near

[1] LNP.
Faradex
and
EMI-X
Electrically
Conductive
Compounds.
Nov.
2003.
[Online].
Available:
http://www.lnp.com/LNP/Products/PShieldingEmi.html
[2] RTP
Company.
Nov.
2003.
[Online].
Available
http://www.rtpcompany.com/products/index.htm
[3] Bekaert. Nov. 2003. [Online]. Available http://www.bekaert.com
[4] Rahman H., Saha P.K., Dowling J., Curran T., Shielding effectiveness
measurement techniques for various materials used for EMI shielding,
IEE Colloquium on Screening of Connectors, Cables and Enclosures
Digest No.012, London, Page(s): 9/1-9/6 of 68, 1992
[5] Kashyap S., Shielding effectiveness measurements with a dual TEM
cell and a split TEM cell, IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility - Symposium Record., Page(s): 262-264 ISSN:
0190-1494, 1986.
[6] Lundgren U., Ekman J., Delsing J., Characterization of Conductive
Thermoplastic Composite Materials using Multiple Measurement Methods, EMC Europe 2002, Sorrento 2002
[7] Mottahed B. D., Manoochehri S., A review of materials, modeling
and simulation, design factors, testing, and measurements related to
electromagnetic interference shielding, Polymer-Plastics Technology
and Engineering, Volume: 34, Issue: 2, Page(s): 271-346, Mars 1995,
ISSN: 0360-2559
[8] Ondrejka A. R., Adams J. W., Shielding effectiveness (SE) measurement techniques, IEEE EMC Society Symposia Records, Page(s): 249256, 1984
[9] Wilson P. F., Ma M. T., Factors inuencing material shielding effectiveness measurements, IEEE EMC Society Symposia Records, Page(s):
29-33, 1985
[10] Bodnar D. G., Denny H. W., Jenkins B. M., Shielding effectiveness
measurements on conductive plastics, IEEE EMC Society Symposia
Records, Page(s): 27-33, 1979

Paper G
Electromagnetic properties of
thermoplastic material for varying
temperatures

Authors:
Urban Lundgren and Jerker Delsing

Reformatted version of paper originally published in:

Submitted to Microwave Theory and Techniques, IEEE Transactions on

c 2004, IEEE, Reprinted with permission.

91

92

Paper G

Electromagnetic properties of thermoplastic material

for varying temperatures
Urban Lundgren, Jerker Delsing
EISLAB
Lule University of Technology
a
Lule , SE-971 87
a
Sweden

Abstract A thermoplastic material is examined. The complex

permittivity and complex permeability are obtained while the
temperature is varied from 20 to 60 Celsius. It was necessary
to perform instrument calibration at each temperature to cancel
temperature effects on cables and connectors. The thermoplastic
material is used in a laminate with metallic foil for encapsulation
of electronic circuits. The laminated technique offers a good
barrier against moisture and good shielding for electromagnetic
energy. To be able to design stripline transmission lines in the
laminate it is necessary to know the electromagnetic behavior of
the isolating plastic material. Real part of the relative permittivity
was found to be 2.0 0.1 in the frequency range 100 MHz to 2.5
GHz. This value shows a very small dependence of temperature
changes in the range 20 Celsius to 60 Celsius.

to study the temperature variations in the electromagnetic

properties of the material under test [1], [2].
It is of interest to explore the usage of a particular laminated
encapsulation material with integrated antennas in environments with changing temperature. The major problem is to
establish a test methodology where temperature effects other
than these of the material under test are sufciently suppressed.
Thus series of experiments have been conducted to obtain
complex permittivity and complex permeability for the thermoplastic over temperature 20 60 C and frequencies from
100 MHz to 2.5 GHz.
The desired material characteristics consists of a real and
imaginary part according to the following notation

I. I NTRODUCTION

= 0 r = 0 (r jr )

Most electronic devices are encapsulated to protect the

electronic circuits from the environment. In many applications
the cost, weight, mechanical protection, dust and moisture
barrier and EMC properties of the encapsulation are critical
parameters. A material choice that have very interesting properties in all these aspects are laminated materials. Due to that
the laminated material is composed of foils of metallic and
thermoplastic material, the encapsulation technique based on
such laminates offers a good barrier against dust and moisture
and good electromagnetic shielding. Further weight and cost
turns out to be advantageous.
Since many new electronics devices are mobile it is of
interest to integrate electrical circuits for example antennas
in the laminate. To be able to design a antenna on the
laminate it is necessary to know certain material parameters
of the involved parts. For instance the complex permittivity
of the isolating material effects the characteristic impedance
which must be considered in the design of the geometry. At
frequencies above 1 GHz the losses in the isolator starts to
become an issue and this is also an effect of the complex
permittivity.
There exists a large number of publications on electromagnetic properties of plastic materials. Older publication (before
1985) often focused on plastic material data at frequencies
below 100 MHz [1]. In later years plastic material data at
microwave frequencies have been of major concern because
the increased need for accurate data when designing devices
working at higher frequencies [2]. It is then also important

and
= 0 r = 0 (r jr )
where is the complex permittivity and is the complex
permeability.
It is expected that the real relative permittivity r of the
studied thermoplastic material will be between 2.0 and 2.5
because of preliminary tests on similar materials. The temperature stability is unknown but very important to judge the
usefulness of the material.
II. M EASUREMENT METHOD
Several methods exists for the measurement of permeability
and permittivity. Some of the most common are the loaded
resonant waveguide cavity [3], [4], the open ended coaxial line
[3] and the loaded coaxial transmission line [3], [5]. Cavity
resonance measurement methods are commonly used because
of the good accuracy offered, particularly for measurement of
imaginary part of the permittivity for determining the losses in
a material [3]. However the resonance of a cavity makes the
method only covering a narrow frequency band. This can be
improved to some extend by including higher order modes.
When studying temperature stability it is desired to use a
method that measures the permittivity and the permeability,
not the effect on the transmission line that is caused by thermal
expansion and contraction of the plastic material. Due to its
useful frequency range the loaded coaxial transmission line
technique is used in this paper for the measurement of the

where k is the propagation constant in the loaded region and

k0 is the propagation constant in the unloaded region and given
by

k0 = 0 0

For a sample length of t meter and an unloaded region in the

housing of l meter, it is possible to express k and R by using
S11 and S12 according to
k=
Fig. 1. Test xture containing sample with following parts: 1. top lid, 2.
SMA connector, 3. stripline center conductor, 4. material sample (2 pieces,
one on each side of center conductor), 5. ferrite for reducing undesired cavity
modes in stripline chamber (one in each corner)

complex parameters. In the transmission line xture the material under test is placed to ll the volume between the inner and
outer conductor in a section along the line. The material may
load the line and cause a change of characteristic impedance.
Both reection and transmission through the xture is used
when calculating the test material data [5], [6].
Reection coefcients and transmission coefcients are
often given as scattering parameters (S-parameters) for a
two port circuit. The two involved reection coefcients are
denoted S11 and S22 . The two transmission coefcients are
denoted S12 and S21 .
The technique [5], [6] used for the measurements in this
section utilizes the measured complex S-parameters for a
loaded 50 transmission line seen in Figure 1.
A. Model for parameter extraction

and

and simplies the calculations considerably. The complex

quantities, r and r , can be expressed using the reection
coefcient,
ZL Z0
R=
(1)
ZL + Z0
between the unloaded and loaded region in the housing according to
k 1R
)
(2)
r = (
k0 1 + R
k 1+R
)
(
k0 1 R

R=

(ej2k0 l

S11
S12 ejkt )

(5)

which are used in equation 2 and 3 to solve for the unknown

quantities. Care must be taken when calculating the propagation constant k using equation 4 due to the inverse cosine
expression. By using an alternative expression for the inverse
cosine, the propagation constant can be split in its real and
imaginary part. If equation 4 is rewritten and the argument
for the inverse cosine term is called Arg according to
2
2
kt = arccos(ej4k0 l + S12 S11 ) = arccos(Arg)

then
kt = ktreal + j ktimg
and
ktreal = arctan(

Im(Arg +

Arg 2 1)

Re(Arg +

Arg 2 1)

) 2n

ktimg = ln( [Re(u)]2 + [Im(u)]2 )

u = Arg +

Arg 2 1

The principal branch, n = 0, of ktreal can be used when the

sample length t is
m
0t
2
where m is the wavelength inside the material.
III. M EASUREMENTS

S22 = S11

r =

and

(4)

where

The calculation of complex permittivity and complex permeability The expressions for the calculation of the complex
permittivity and complex permeability are given in this part.
For a complete theoretical derivation, see [5]. In the calculations, only two S-parameters are used since the test xture in
Figure 1 are assumed to be symmetrical and reciprocal. This
means that
S21 = S12

and

2
2
arccos(ej4k0 l + S12 S11 )
t

(3)

The coaxial xture described above was placed in an

temperature test chamber (Heraeus HT4010), see Figure 2.
This chamber acts as a combined oven and freezer capable
of keeping a programmed temperature stable. Temporal temperature uctuations stay within 1 C according to chamber
specication. The scattering parameters in the xture was
measured with a vector network analyser (Rohde & Schwarz
ZVR) , see Figure 3. After calibration the vector network
analyser and attached cables introduces a random error of
less than 1 dB. A possible remaining bias error may come
from an unknown behavior of the coaxial xture which were
not included in the calibration. How these errors on the Sparameters inuences on the resulting r and r has not been
derived.

Real part of relative permittivity at room temperature

Material under tes t (MUT)

P olyethylene (P E)
Empty fixture
2.5

1.5

0.5

Fig. 2.

0.5

1.5
Frequency (Hz)

2.5

3
9

x 10

Test xture inside climate chamber

Fig. 4. Measured real part of relative permittivity at room temperature (20 )

Celsius for material under test (MUT), polyethylene reference (PE) and empty
xture (air) reference.

Imaginary part of relative permittivity at room temperature

Fig. 3.

Test setup including vector network analyser and climate chamber

0.6

0.4

0.2

-0.2

-0.4

-0.6

-0.8

-1

The upper frequency limit of the measurement is determined

by the wavelength in the transmission line and the sample
length in the wave propagation direction. The upper frequency
limit is therefore dependent of the sample material. The
frequency axis in Figures 4 to 7 continues up to 3 GHz but
reliable data is limited to 2.5 GHz for the material under test
in this paper and 2.4 GHz for polyethylene.
After some testing it was decided that 3 hours waiting after
setting chamber temperature gave the coaxial xture enough
time to equalize the temperature. However the temperature of
the material sample has not been monitored, it was assumed
that repeated identical measurement readings indicated that
temperature equalization was reached. A measurement reading
at preprogrammed temperature could then be done.
For the rst measurement attempt the vector network analyser was calibrated in room temperature and temperature was
set and settling for 3 hours, then measurement was taken. This
proved to be an insufcient method because the measurement
setup was very sensitive to temperature changes and temperature response from measurement cables and connectors had
to be cancelled. The measurement scheme was redesigned to

Material under tes t (MUT)

P olyethylene (P E)
Empty fixture

0.8

0.5

1.5
Frequency (Hz)

2.5

3
9

x 10

Fig. 5. Measured imaginary part of relative permittivity at room temperature

(20 ) Celsius for material under test (MUT), polyethylene reference (PE) and
empty xture (air) reference.

include three temperatures 20 , 40 and 60 C. Calibration is

done at each temperature and temperature and cable layout
were kept xed until measurements had been carried out. The
calibration kit of the network analyser is specied to perform
accurately for temperatures up to 50 C. In our measurements
at 60 C calibration was successful and good results were
acquired. For measurements at 80 C proper calibration was
not possible.
After setting the temperature in the chamber, the data
recording was done after waiting 3 hours for temperature
equalization in the coaxial xture.
IV. R ESULTS
The measured real part of relative permittivity for polyethylene is 2.3 0.1 at room temperature (20 C), see Figure 4.
For the material under test the value is 2.0 0.1 at room

Material under tes t (MUT)

P olyethylene (P E)
Empty fixture
2.5

1.6

Real part of relative permittivity at 900 MHz

Real part of relative permeability at room temperature

1.8

1.4

1.2

0.8

0.6

2
P E meas ured data
P E fitted polynomial
MUT meas ured data
MUT fitted polynomial
Air reference meas ured data
Air reference fitted polynomial

1.5

0.4
0.5

0.2

0.5

1.5
Frequency (Hz)

2.5

0
20

Fig. 6. Measured real part of relative permeability at room temperature (20 )

Celsius for material under test (MUT), polyethylene reference (PE) and empty
xture (air) reference.

30

35
40
45
Temperature in Celcius

50

55

60

Fig. 8. Measured temperature characteristics for polyethylene (PE), thermoplastic material (MUT) and empty xture (air) in same graph and corresponding tted polynomials, at 900 MHz
3

1
Material under tes t (MUT)
P olyethylene (P E)
Empty fixture

0.8

2.5
Real part of relative permittivity at 1800 MHz

Imaginary part of relative permeability at room temperature

25

x 10

0.6

0.4

0.2

-0.2

-0.4

-0.6

2
P E meas ured data
P E fitted polynomial
MUT meas ured data
MUT fitted polynomial
Air reference meas ured data
Air reference fitted polynomial

1.5

0.5

-0.8

-1

0.5

1.5
Frequency (Hz)

2.5

3
9

25

30

35
40
45
Temperature in Celcius

50

55

60

x 10

Fig. 7. Measured imaginary part of relative permeability at room temperature

(20 ) Celsius for material under test (MUT), polyethylene reference (PE) and
empty xture (air) reference.

temperature.
A curve tting method have been used in a least square
error manner. A polynomial of degree 1 (a straight line) was
tted to the measured data and is plotted together with the
measured data. The measured temperature dependence for
reference material (PE), material under test and air is shown
for three frequencies in Figures 8, 9 and 10.
The corresponding straight line equations are at 900 MHz:
rP olyethylene = 2.3321 (9E 4) t
rM U T sample = 2.0985 + (1E 4) t
rAirref erence = 1.0283 (2E 4) t
The corresponding straight line equations are at 1800 MHz:
rP olyethylene = 2.2289

0
20

Fig. 9. Measured temperature characteristics for polyethylene (PE), thermoplastic material (MUT) and empty xture (air) in same graph and corresponding tted polynomials, at 1.8 GHz

rM U T sample = 2.0183 + (5E 4) t

rAirref erence = 0.9909 + (2E 4) t
The corresponding straight line equations are at 2400 MHz:
rP olyethylene = 2.2690 (6E 4) t
rM U T sample = 2.0690 (5E 4) t
rAirref erence = 0.9661
where r denotes the real part of the relative permittivity
for corresponding materials and t denotes the temperature in
degrees Celsius.
The temperature dependence on the real relative permittivity
is very small in temperature range and frequency range, which
can be seen in small coefcients of the line equations. For the
material under test a temperature change from 20 C to 60 C

R EFERENCES

Real part of relative permittivity at 2400 MHz

2.5

2
P E meas ured data
P E fitted polynomial
MUT meas ured data
MUT fitted polynomial
Air reference meas ured data
Air reference fitted polynomial

1.5

0.5

0
20

25

30

35
40
45
Temperature in Celcius

50

55

60

Fig. 10.
Measured temperature characteristics for polyethylene (PE),
thermoplastic material (MUT) and empty xture (air) in same graph and
corresponding tted polynomials, at 2.4 GHz

is causing the real relative permittivity to decrease 1%. This

change is smaller than what the accuracy of this measurement
method can resolve and must be considered non signicant.
The imaginary part of relative permittivity for the material
under test is slightly lower (closer to zero) than corresponding
measured value for polyethylene, see Figure 5. The sensitivity
for this measurement method is not enough to quantify the
magnitude difference.
Relative permeability values are expected to be close to 1
for the real part and close to 0 for the imaginary part in all
measurements. This was also the case in the measured data
shown in Figure 6 and 7.
The measured relative permeability data is stable under
temperature variations.
V. C ONCLUSIONS
The material under test has a real relative permittivity of
2.0 at room temperature (20 C) and it is independent of
temperature in the range 20 C to 60 C.
Imaginary relative permittivity was slightly smaller for the
material under test than for polyethylene.
The results for the permeability was as expected for the
material under test. The real part of the relative permeability
is close to 1 and imaginary part close to 0.
The measurement setup was very sensitive to temperature
variations. The rst attempt to cover the temperature range
0 Celsius to 80 C with a single calibration was insufcient.
Measurements were then done at three temperature points, 20 ,
40 and 60 C, with careful calibration at each temperature to
cancel the temperature effects on the cables and connectors.
VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Karl-Erik Leeb at ProofCap AB contributed to this study
by producing the material samples.

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