A Computational Approach to Investigate Electromagnetic Shielding Effectiveness of Steel Fiber-Reinforced Mortar

Abstract

The electromagnetic shielding effectiveness of steel fiber-reinforced mortar was numerically examined in this study. A series of numerical analysis on twenty-seven types of specimens of different diameters, lengths, and volume fractions of fibers were conducted using the FE program HFSS to investigate the effect of the dimensions of steel fibers and the amount of fibers added to the mortar on the shielding effectiveness. S-parameters of some specimens were experimentally measured by the free space method and the experimentally measured S-parameters were compared with those computed in order to verify the present numerical analysis method. It was found that smaller diameters and larger volume fractions provided better shielding effectiveness. Fiber length did not strongly influence the shielding effectiveness. The number of fibers was found to strongly influence the shielding of electromagnetic waves, and the optimal number of fibers in the mortar was found.