Compromizing and optimizing the design of special-purpose reverberation chambers for HIRF testing

We discuss the design of compact electromagnetic reverberation chambers for EMC testing of dedicated test objects subjected to high-intensity fields. It is shown that significant size reductions and deviations from conformality of the chamber with respect to the shape of the test object are possible within the specifications of IEC 61000-4-21. An expression for the expected value of the maximum field strength as a function of operational and configurational parameters is given, showing that the test level depends only implicitly on the chamber volume. Associated uncertainty limits for the test level and minimum average input power required for a given test specification are also estimated.