Shielding Effectiveness Analysis of Carbon Fiber

Composite Material Using Tensor Impedance

Boundary Condition (TIBC)
Kai Wang, Jean-Jacques Laurin, and Ke Wu
Department of Electrical Engineering
École Polytechnique de Montréal
Montréal, Canada

Abstract—A tensor impedance boundary condition (TIBC) is possible to represent composites by impedance boundary
proposed for multilayer unidirectional and woven fabric carbon condition, which sets the stage for reducing computation
fiber composite materials. This TIBC will be deployed for complexity.
analyzing the shielding effectiveness (SE) of a prescribed
composites panel. Propagation constants are firstly obtained in In order to deal with the electromagnetic behavior of carbon
case of the composite material, and then the TIBC is formulated fiber composites, [8]-[9] use transmission matrix method to
directly through modifying general impedance boundary analyze unidirectional carbon fiber composites with arbitrary
condition (GIBC). Moreover, the effect of incident angle on TIBC
is also discussed herein, and conditions for which the incidence
angle effect on TIBC can be neglected are given. Finally, several
numerical results are provided and compared with simulations
from a commercial software in order to validate our proposed
theory, and a good agreement is observed.

Keywords—carbon fiber composite material; tensor impedance

boundary condition (TIBC); shielding effectiveness (SE);
unidirectional and woven fabric

I. INTRODUCTION
Carbon fiber composite materials are finding growing and
promising applications in aircraft and spacecraft industries [1-2].
High strength-to-weight ratio, low cost, and good thermal
properties are among some reasons for their popularity. Carbon
fiber composite materials are typically composed of a binding
matrix, reinforced by carbon fiber inclusions having different
shapes. As these materials are not as conductive as metal, there
is an increasing need to construct an efficient model to predict
accurately electromagnetics-related phenomena like shielding
effectiveness (SE) in presence of various interference sources
such as high intensity radiated fields (HIRF), lightning, etc.
There have been many studies on this issue reported so far in the
literature [3-7]. In [3], a detailed and systematic analysis is given
on carbon fiber composites, and three models are proposed to
analyze composites from low to high frequencies. A rigorous
coupled wave method is used in [4] to analyze the SE of woven
fabric composites, and also an accurate Bruggeman’s model is
also set up to represent woven type composites. A model called
Maxwell Garnett (MG) model is also introduced in [5], however,
it is accurate for comparatively low concentrations of
conducting inclusions. An improved homogeneous model to
capture high frequency properties is introduced in [6], and the
discussions on inclusions shape are available in [7]. These
models have a common ground, i.e., the carbon fiber composites
could be expressed through a tensor permittivity, making it
Fig. 1. Multilayer composite panel structure with embedded arbitrary carbon
fiber orientations.
layer number, arbitrary shape, arbitrary fiber orientation and
arbitrary layer thickness. However, this method is complex and
sometimes encounters singularity problems. In [7]-[8], a surface
impedance boundary condition is proposed and applied to finite-
difference scheme for analyzing carbon fiber composites.
However, the effects of thickness on impedance boundary
condition are not taken into account.
In this paper, a detailed and systematic discussion on the
impedance boundary condition of carbon fiber composites is
provided. Since this impedance boundary condition is based on
tensor permittivity, so it is called as TIBC. The TIBC is useful
in analyzing SE of multilayer unidirectional or woven fabric
carbon fiber composites. Moreover, a minimum conductivity
condition above which the angle of incidence has a negligible

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effect is identified. This makes it possible to use the TIBC in a is actually simpler to work directly with wave equation for Ey
spatial domain method of moment analysis of composite and Hy, and then find other fields from these two components.
structures having arbitrary geometry. Finally, several numerical The two vector wave equations are given below:
results about SE of multilayer composites panel based on TIBC v v
are given and compared with commercial software FEKO, a ’ u ’ u E  Z 2 P0H E 0 (2a)
good agreement is obtained. v v
’ u (H 1 ˜ ’ u H )  Z 2 P0 H 0 (2b)
II. TENSOR IMPEDANCE BOUNDARY CONDITION (TIBC)
v
A. Derivation of propagation constants in composite material Applying the condition that ’ ˜ (H E ) 0 to the y-component
panel of (2a) yields a wave equation for Ey:
A general multilayer composite material is depicted in Fig.
1. For simplicity of our discussion, we will only focus on a single w2Ey H y w2Ey w2Ey
   Z 2 P0H y E y 0
layer firstly, then expand it to multilayer. wx 2 H x wy 2 wz 2 (3)
Ey is used to find Hxvand Hz, then making up the TE wave.
Similarly, applying ’ ˜ H 0 to y-component of (2b) yields a
wave equation for Hy:

w2H y w2H y w2H y

   Z 2 P0H x H y 0
wx 2 wy 2 wz 2 (4)
Hy is used to find Ex and Ez, then making up the TM wave.
Now assuming an incident plane wave propagation of the form
v v  j ( k x k y k z )
E ( H ) e x y z ( axˆ  byˆ  czˆ ) , and substituting y-
(a) (b)
component of E-field to (3) yields the propagation constant in
Fig. 2. Configurations of single layer (a) unidirectional and (b) woven fabric composite material for TE wave:
carbon fiber composites.
Hy 2
2
k zE Z 2 P0H y  k x2  k (5a)
Hx y
And substituting y-component of H-field into (4) yields the
propagation constant for TM wave:
2
k zM Z 2 P0H x  k x2  k y2 (5b)

We can observe that there is only one unique propagation

constant in the composite material under TE or TM wave. This
will make it possible to transform the general impedance
boundary condition (GIBC) to a TIBC.
Fig. 2(b) illustrates standard orthogonal woven fabric
composite with a plain weave. It is constructed of two sets of
fiber orientation running along x- and y-axes. The tensor
Fig. 3. Coordinate rotation between principle (x’y’z’) and global (xyz) permittivity could be seen as the average of two types of
coordinates. unidirectional composites [4], i.e.:
The unidirectional type will be firstly discussed. Fig. 2(a) is
the configuration of a single layer unidirectional composites. ª0.5(H x  H y ) 0 0º
Generally, it is assumed as a homogenous uniaxial material Hw « 0 0.5(H x  H y ) 0 » (6)
under certain conditions, the details are given in [3]. Its tensor « »
permittivity is given below: ¬« 0 0 H x ¼»

ªH x 0 0º Once the tensor permittivity is obtained, the propagation

constants in woven fabric composites could be derived with the
Hu «0 Hy 0» (1) similar process discussed before, leading to:
« »
¬« 0 0 H x ¼» Z 2 P0 (H x  H y ) 2 2
This indicates the fiber orientation is along x-axis. Since the
2
k zE  kx  k y (7a)
permittivity along y-axis is different from the other two axes, it
2

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 Z 2 P0 (H x  H y ) Hx  Hy 2 ªcos M 0  sin M 0 º
2
k zM  (k x  k y2 ) (7b) « 0 cos M 0  sin M »
2 2H x R2 « » (9c)
« sin M 0 cos M 0 »
The unidirectional type and woven fabric type have the same « »
diagonal tensor permittivity form but different values, thus ¬ 0 sin M 0 cos M ¼
finally different propagation constants are derived. where φ is the fiber orientation with respect to the x’ axis, R1 and
B. Transformation from GIBC to TIBC. R2 are used to transform the E and H field from the unprimed to
The GIBC [9] is often used in numerical methods when primed coordinate systems, respectively, i.e.: E c R1 ˜ E and
handling thin lossy structures. GIBC expresses the four H c R2 ˜ H . E and H are defined in (8a), Ec and Hc are the
tangential field components in connection with the two sides of fields in principal coordinates. The main idea here is that we
a lossy isotropic slab. For a thin anisotropic sheet like solve all the problems in principal coordinates, and transform the
unidirectional carbon fiber panel, different propagation constant results to global coordinates through rotation matrices.
is excited under TE or TM incident wave, therefore the GIBC
needs to be modified as TIBC to satisfy this variation. For D. Multilayer composite panel
example, in Fig. 2(a), we have E Z ˜ H , and: For the multilayer case, an ABCD-matrix like relationship
t needs to be proposed to deal with cascaded composites panel
E(H ) ª¬ E1 x ( H1 y ) E2 x ( H 2 y ) E1 y ( H1x ) E2 y ( H 2 x ) º¼ (8a)
structure. Fig. 4 shows a multilayer composites panel. For
arbitrary one layer, we have U i A ˜ U i 1 , where:
ª ZTM 0 º
Z « 0 (8b)
¬ ZTE »¼ 4u4 Ui ª¬ Eix H iy Eiy H ix º¼
t
(10a)

ª AM 0º
ªCM ( E ) / tan(k zM ( E )d ) CM ( E ) / sin(k zM ( E )d ) º A « 0 (10b)
ZTM (TE ) ¬ AE »¼ 4u4
«C » (8c)
¬ M ( E ) / sin(k zM ( E )d ) CM ( E ) / tan(k zM ( E )d ) ¼
ª cos(k zM ( E )d ) CM ( E ) sin(k zM ( E )d )º
where CM  jZP0 / k zM and CE jZP0 / k zE , d is the thickness AM ( E ) «sin(k (10c)
¬ zM ( E ) d ) / CM ( E ) cos(k zM ( E )d ) »¼
of composites panel. Subscripts 1 and 2 in (8a) are the interface
plane definitions of composites which are shown in Fig. 2(a), Similarly, we need to use rotation matrix R to connect
interface plane 1 is z=0 plane and 2 is z=d plane. Equation (8b) principal and global coordinates.
is the TIBC of a single-layer unidirectional composite panel. The
woven fabric type composites has the same form, but the ª cos M 0 sin M 0 º
corresponding propagation constants in (8c) should be used. « 0 cos M 0  sin M »
« » (11)
C. Coordinate rotation. R
«  sin M 0 cos M 0 »
The above analysis is based on the diagonal tensor « »
¬ 0 sin M 0 cos M ¼
permittivity, which means that the fiber orientation is parallel to
one of the coordinate components. However, the fiber where R is used to connect U ic R ˜ U i . The A matrix in (10c)
orientation may be rotated in practice, as depicted in Fig. 3. In
order to apply all the derivations above and also handle the needs to be modified as:
practical case, a rotation matrix R is needed to connect the
principal coordinates (x’y’z’) and global (xyz) coordinates. ªA 0º
A R 1 ˜ « M ˜R (12)
Finally, the impedance matrix in (8b) should be modified as: ¬ 0 AE »¼
ªZ 0 º Now, for N layer cascaded composites panel, we have the
Z R11 ˜ « TM ˜R (9a)
ZTE »¼ 2
tangential fields relationship written as:
¬ 0
N
ª cos M 0 sin M 0 º U1 (– Ai ) ˜ U N (13)
« 0 cos M 0 sin M » i 1
« » (9b)
R1
«  sin M 0 cos M 0 » The woven fabric type composites have a similar expression,
« » but the corresponding propagation constants in (10c) should be
¬ 0  sin M 0 cos M ¼
replaced.
Equation (13) gives the connection between the tangential
field components on two sides tangential of the multilayer
composite material. However, this relationship is not expressed
in an impedance form. The impedance form (TIBC) of

295
multilayer unidirectional or woven fabric composite material minimum conductivity condition to satisfy (14) for single layer
could be obtained from (13) through some mathematical unidirectional carbon fiber composites. The fiber orientation φ
operations. is chosen as 0 because it is the worst case to satisfy (14).
E. Effect of incidence angle on the TIBC. What is more, the incident angle almost has no effect on woven
Generally, the TIBC for an anisotropic material is dependent on fabric carbon fiber composites. This could be foreseen from (7),
incident angle. Nevertheless, this dependence may become which means that:
negligible under certain conditions for lossy carbon fiber panels.
This allows using TIBC in situations where the angle of Z 2 P0 (H x  H y ) Z 2 P0 (H x  H y ) Hx  Hy 2
incidence is unknown or not well defined, as for instance in ? k x2 Or ? kx
spatial domain numerical method solutions. Therefore, a TIBC
2 2 2H x
which is not sensitive to incident angle becomes a useful feature. can be satisfied at any incident angle. Of course, we only
consider high-loss composites herein, which means either εx or
εy includes a high enough conductivity. Therefore, the TIBC for
woven fabric carbon fiber can be approximated as being always
independent of incident angle.

TABLE I. MINIMUM CONDUCTIVITY TO SATISFY EQUATION (14) UNIT:

SIEMENS/M
Frequency
0.1MHz 1MHz 10MHz 100MHz 1GHz
Thickness
0.1 mm 10^(-4) 10^(-3) 10^(-2) 0.1 1

1 mm 10^(-4) 10^(-3) 10^(-2) 0.1 1

2 mm 10^(-3) 10^(-3) 10^(-2) 0.1 1

III. NUMERICAL RESULTS

Fig. 4. Plane wave incident on multilayer composites panel.
Fig. 4 shows a plane wave with incident angle θ illuminated
on a multilayer composite material. For simplicity, a 2-D case
which means only xoz plane is considered herein, so ky is equal
to 0. θ is related to kx, i.e., k x k0 sin(T ) .The unidirectional
composites are considered first. Generally, the conductivity in
the direction parallel to fiber orientation is so high that the
incident angle has a negligible effect on the fields inside the
composite layers. For example, in Fig. 2(a), the fiber orientation
is along x-axis, therefore we have Z 2 P0H x ? k x2 , the k x2 item
could be neglected and (5b) is modified as:
2
k zM | Z 2 P0H x
under any value of θ. In the direction perpendicular to fiber
orientation, however, the conductivity may be not high enough
to neglect k x2 . The minimum conductivity value for which k x2
item can be neglected is investigated. The operation frequency
and the thickness of composites panel are firstly fixed, then we
vary the conductivity of the direction perpendicular to fiber
orientation, while maintaining an error of less than 5% on each
element of tensor impedance matrix, that is:
Z (T )i , j / Z i , j  1  5% 1 d i, j d 4 (14)
The Z in (14) is calculated by neglecting kx item in (5), and it is
an incident angle independent TIBC. Table ĉ gives the
The application of TIBC is discussed in this section. Firstly,
the SE of multilayer unidirectional or woven fabric carbon fiber
composites is calculated based on TIBC. The results are
compared with computations carried out with FEKO. Secondly,
the condition Table ĉ under which the incidence angle has no
effect on the TIBC is investigated. With and without the
proposed condition, the SE of single layer composites is
calculated based on the incident angle independent TIBC and
compared with FEKO.
The TIBC based calculations will be inaccurate as the
frequency increases. This is due to the homogenization method
on carbon fiber composites is invalid in high frequency and the
composites need to be treated as periodic structure. An empirical
safe cut-off frequency (fc) to TIBC is given below:
c
fc (15)
100 Nd H rre sin
Where H rre sin is the relative permittivity of resin which used
to construct the composites.
A. TIBC Based SE Calculation.
The definition of SE is easily found in many textbooks like
[10]. For plane wave incidence, the electric and magnetic SE
have no difference. The TIBC expresses the tangential field
components relationship, however, SE is calculated based on
input and output field magnitude. A transformation between
total fields and tangential fields are given below:

296
 ª Ex º ª 0 0 cos(T ) cos(T ) º ª C1 º The results are compared with FEKO calculations and shown in
«H » « Fig. 6(a). No differences between the calculated and simulated
0 0 k0 / (ZP0 ) k0 / (ZP0 ) » «C2 »
« y» « »« » results can be seen, which indicates that we do not need to
« Ey » « 1 1 0 0 » « C3 » consider incident angle effect on TIBC once the proposed
« » « »« »
¬Hx ¼ 
¬ z k / (ZP 0 ) k z / (ZP 0 ) 0 0 ¼ ¬ C4 ¼ condition is satisfied. Secondly, a tensor permittivity with
(15) εx=εz=3.4ε0-j1000/ω and εy=3.4ε0-j0/ω is used. In this case, the
condition of Table ĉis not satisfied. The results are shown in
where θ is the incident angle, k0 Z P0H 0 is the free space Fig. 6(b), and a disagreement becomes apparent when frequency
wave number and k z k0 cos(T ) , C1 and C2 are the incident and incident angle go up. The conclusion is that we cannot use
the incident angle unconsidered TIBC when the proposed
and reflected wave coefficients of TE case, C3 and C4 represent
incident and reflect wave of TM case. condition is not satisfied. Actually, it means that the k x2 item is
Fig. 5 shows the results calculated by both TIBC and with comparable to other items in (5) when the proposed condition
FEKO. A four layer composite panel with fiber orientation is dissatisfied.
[0°/45°/90°/-45°] is investigated. Each layer has the same IV. CONCLUSION
thickness d=0.5 mm. The incident angle is 30°. The diagonal
tensor permittivity is shown in the middle right of Fig. 5. There In this paper, a systematic approach to obtaining the TIBC
is a good agreement observed when frequency is below around of unidirectional and woven fabric carbon fiber composites is
300MHz. when frequency goes up, a little difference occurs. proposed and discussed. The propagation constants are firstly
This phenomenon maybe related to the used mesh size in FEKO, derived and a TIBC in principle coordinates is then obtained by
which may be inaccurate at higher frequencies. A better a modified GIBC with respect to propagation constant. The fiber
agreement for TE case can be observed between our results and orientation with respect to the coordinate rotation is also taken
those of FEKO as long as smaller mesh size is selected, but it into consideration. A condition on the minimum conductivity of
will significantly increase the simulation time. For TM case, the direction perpendicular to fiber orientation in order to obtain
however, the simulation results from FEKO have no changes independence on incident angle of the TIBC is proposed and
even though smaller mesh size is selected. discussed. This becomes useful in the development and use of

(a)

Fig. 5. Comparisons of SE results between our method and FEKO.

B. Incident angle effect on TIBC

Table ĉ gives the minimum values of conductivity leading
to an error of less than 5% on terms of the TIBC. Two examples
will be given here to verify this condition. Since the incident
angle has no effect on TIBC for woven fabric carbon fiber
composites material, the unidirectional case is only considered
herein. The fiber orientation is always chosen as 0°, thus only
TE incident case is investigated. Firstly, a tensor permittivity
with εx=εz=3.4ε0-j1000/ω and εy=3.4ε0-j5/ω is proposed, and it
satisfies Table ĉ. Based on this tensor permittivity, the SE is
obtained through TIBC, assuming an incidence angle of zero. (b)

297
Fig. 6. Compared SE results between calculated and simulated when the tensor
permittivity (a) satisfy and (b) does not satisfy the proposed condition.
numerical methods when incident angle is unknown. Finally, the
introduced TIBC is applied to the calculations of SE of certain
composites panels, the calculated results are compared with
those of commercial software FEKO, and a good agreement is
observed.
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