| Abstrakt: |
The switch from LTE to 5G will create a new age of digitalization in the coming years. Short latency and high-speed data transmission will enable emerging engineering sectors like electric vehicles, smart factories, and precision agriculture. Electromagnetic waves that are primarily meant to transmit large chunks of data and information, interact with sensitive electronic equipment in the direction of propagation. This interaction is called electromagnetic interference (EMI). Interference may degrade the performance of a circuit or even stop it from functioning. Innovative solution to the EMI challenge is to shield the concerned equipment by enclosing it in a faraday cage made of conductive textiles. Conductive textiles are preferred instead of traditional metallic sheets, as they favor low weight, good flexibility and drapeability into complex shapes. Reflection being the primary mechanism of shielding in metal, is independent of the material thickness. This simple understanding creates enormous possibilities for the development of a hybrid material. Generally, a thin conductive metal layer is coated on a low-density polymer fiber. All the conductive fabric products available in the market, despite of their shielding performance, have at least one shortcoming in terms of cost, flexibility, weight, and maximum working temperature. FibreCoat's solution to these deficits is to design a tailored conductive fabric to achieve a shielding performance of 50 dB across the frequency range of 100 MHz - 10 GHz. The approach is realized in two stages, namely, fiber design and fabric design. In fiber design, FibreCoat uses an innovative single filament coating technique to apply a thin layer of molten aluminum on basalt fibers at a speed of 1500 m/min. The use of inorganic basalt fiber as the base material optimizes the cost, and maximum working temperature of the final product. On the other side, fabric design deals with the weaving characteristics, mainly weaving pattern, yarn count and density. First, the shielding mechanisms for a frequency range of 1 MHz - 10 GHz is determined. Based on this understanding, the influence of different yarn densities on the shielding performance is evaluated in both analytical and numerical methods. An ideal compromise between yarn density and shielding performance for a fabric weight of 72 g/m2 is made. Conductive fabric is woven & tested for shielding effectiveness according to ASTM D4935 standards for a frequency range of 100 MHz - 10 GHz. ALUCOAT has the potential to become the much-needed low-cost shielding material for the electromagnetic shielding of electric vehicles and 5G devices of the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
