Effect of a metallic object on the quality factor of a reverberation chamber

In this paper the effect of a metallic object on the quality factor of a reverberation chamber is investigated. If we assume equal material properties for both the metallic object and the walls of the reverberation chamber, the decrease in Q due to a metallic object can be easily calculated. It is shown that the conductivity of the walls of the used NIST reverberation chamber is much lower than the conductivity of thin foil.