Impact of Absorbers on the Shielding Effectiveness of Metallic Rooms with Apertures

An electromagnetic field penetrating through an aperture or slot of a metallic enclosure generates many standing-waves due to the resonance inside the metallic enclosure, which results in reduced shielding performance. This paper examines the effect of absorbent material (absorber) to improve shielding effectiveness (SE) of large metallic rooms with apertures or slots. First, a theoretical formulation to extract the Q-factor of an absorber with any shape is proposed. Using this, the contribution of the absorber to the SE improvement of a shielded room with different sized circular apertures was investigated. Second, the resonant mode density inside the shielded room was classified into non-resonant, under-moded, and over-moded states with an increase in frequency, and the effect of the absorber in each frequency range was examined. The analysis was conducted through numerical simulation using a commercial full-wave simulator and experimental measurement using a fabricated actual shielded room and commercial absorbers. The accuracy of the analysis results was verified through the comparison of simulated and measured results. The analysis results ensured that the absorber was not effective in improving the SE in the non-resonant state of the metallic room. It was also confirmed that the absorber was effective in improving the SE in the over-moded state of the metallic room where a severe standing-wave occurs. In addition, the SE improvement level differed depending on the location of the absorber in the room.