Review of Circuit Approach to Calculate Shielding Effectiveness

The shielding effectiveness of an enclosure at low frequencies can be readily computed using a circuit approach. Not only does this technique include the effects of the properties of the shield material, but it also includes the details of the geometry of the enclosure. Furthermore, this approach allows a nonempirical consideration of mesh enclosures and the effects of resistive seams in enclosure walls. By working with the circuit analogue, penetration by transient fields can also be computed. Essentially the enclosure is viewed as an antenna. In the case of magnetic shielding effectiveness, the enclosure is viewed as a short circuited loop antenna. In the case of electric field penetration, the enclosure is viewed as a fat electric dipole. Using this characterization and exact solutions where available, the current distribution on the outside of the enclosure is first determined. Then, based on the current distribution, the penetrating fields are computed. The equations are developed in such a way as to preserve a lumped circuit analogue for the low-frequency region. The basic circuit equations for magnetic field penetration are rederived from a rigorous solution. Rules to estimate the rise-time, fall-time, and peak magnitudes of transient penetrating fields are developed. The electric shielding effectiveness is developed in a similar manner. In both cases the results of the circuit approach agree well with those based on rigorous solutions of the electromagnetic boundary conditions. The results also agree with published experimental data on both large and small enclosures.