The development and analysis of conductive nonwoven carbon fibre veils for electromagnetic shielding applications

Electromagnetic interference (EMI) is a growing problem in the modern world and as the number of devices and their operating frequencies increase so do the issues associated with EMI. The aim of this study is to understand and quantify the main parameters that govern the Shielding Effectiveness of ‘carbon fibre’ based materials, in the form of nonwoven veils. Frequencies from 2.6 to 40 GHz were analysed, and it was found that the most conductive veils (0.14 0.05 /sq) provided over 120dB of attenuation. Investigations into how parameters such as fibre length, veil basis weight and metal coatings affect the shielding performance are also included.