Scattering by arbitrarily-shaped slots in thick conducting screens: an approximate solution

In this paper, the integral equation formulation of the thick aperture problem is reviewed and then modified to make it continuously valid for any aperture thickness. Hence, the new proposed thick aperture formulation is free from the difficulties usually encountered when applying it to a vanishing thickness slot. Afterwards, a simplification of the formulation is proposed, which reduces dramatically the computational burden while providing valid results for apertures whose thicknesses remain small compared with their linear transverse dimensions but having otherwise arbitrary shapes and sizes. Preliminary numerical results confirm the validity of the proposed technique and show clearly its advantages.