Three methods for measuring the Shielding Effectiveness of shielding materials: A comparison

Since few years the authors has focused on the measurement of SE of different materials using “alternative” measurement methods. In a paper recently published they compared two methods of performing Shielding Effectiveness measurements: an apertured TEM cell, used as emitter (“source”) in a GTEM, and the same apertured TEM cell used as a receiver in a large Reverberation Chamber (RC). The maximum frequency of that analysis was 1 GHz. In this paper these two methods are compared with a third method the authors implemented a couple of years ago (the “Nested Reverberation Chambers” method), and the results critically evaluated. The criteria adopted to make the comparison are briefly explained and the results achieved are presented. The results of the analysis show that the two methods based on the TEM cell provide results well comparable, while the data taken from the Nested Reverberation Chamber configuration shows a large deviation, probably because the field inside the nested RC is rather non-homogenous.