A STUDY OF THE EMC PERFORMANCE OF A GRADED-IMPEDANCE, MICROWAVE, RICE-HUSK ABSORBER

Biomass used for energy, whether it is extracted from forest residues or agricultural waste, contributes in many areas, such as power production, the construction industry, and also as a major source of different organic and inorganic compounds in the petrochemical industry. In recent years, research has identified a very remarkable use of agricultural waste, especially rice husks, as a microwave absorber in a pyramidal shape. However, absorbers built in this shape are fragile and require a very high degree of care, especially near the access panels, doors, and high traffic areas of the anechoic facility. This paper presents the results of a detailed experimental investigation of a more-robust, new design that is based on the concept of impedance or dielectric grading of rice-husk material. The absorber was fabricated using multiple layers of rice-husk material with increasing dielectric loss along the incident wave propagation axis. This type of fabrication technique provides more robust design of the microwave, rice-husk absorber with less thickness, as compared to the geometricallytapered, pyramid, or wedge absorbers. Free-space transmission and radar cross section (RCS) methods have been used, to study the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) performance over the frequency range of 4-8 GHz. After the receiving equipment was calibrated by the thrureflect-line (TRL) calibration technique, the experiments were performed inside the anechoic chamber. The performance of the absorber was evaluated by incorporating the effects of circular-hole perforation, cross-polarized seams, and different metallic back plates. The proposed absorber demonstrated good performance (< -10 dB) for normal and 60° off the normal incident angles over the frequency range of 4-8 GHz. Reflectivity performance also was found to be comparable to one of the commercially-available absorbers.