Shielding effectiveness of construction materials

Shielding effectiveness measurement, up to the GHz range, of construction materials with different compositions is an important issue. In this paper a coaxial waveguide, originally developed for thin films, is proposed as a simple device able to perform measurements on test samples with a thickness of a few millimetres. A calibration of the test system, with length extended of 5 mm, has been done both with a theoretical evaluation and an experimental measurement. Data obtained with construction materials of current interest for research are presented. With respect to similar systems reported in literature, where data up to 1.5 GHz are shown, this system has proven to be appropriate for measurements up to 3 GHz without too stringent tolerances in the sample geometry and without contact problems. Moreover, with inorganic polymers test samples, a clear relation between shielding effectiveness and heating temperature of the material has been observed.