Shielding Effectiveness of Protective Metallic Wire Meshes: EM Modeling and Validation

An effective-layer model is proposed to predict the EM shielding performances of metallic wire grids typically used as protective layers in carbon fiber-reinforced composite laminates for aeronautical applications. The model is valid over a wide frequency range and it takes into account the field penetration through the grating. The shielding performance of the wire grid is estimated by means of the average shielding effectiveness, which represents the response of the material to an incident plane wave having both transverse-magnetic and transverse-electric polarizations. The proposed model is validated by comparison with experimental data, which demonstrates its validity over a wide frequency range, up to 18 GHz.