Multilayer magnetic shielding

As I recall, Shelkunoff did cover the near-field region. In round numbers, the practical distinction between DC and AC was the ratio of shield thickness divided by skin depth at the frequency of interest.

If the shield was multiple skin depths in thickness, the concept of inside and outside currents is realized, and the coupling between inside and outside becomes exponentially small as the ratio grows.

Below that frequency, there is no distinction between inside and outside, and the transfer impedance of the shield is basically the DC resistivity of the shield.

I first ran into this while deigning coax systems to distribute time reference signals, where mains power frequency ground-loop currents could couple voltages efficiently onto the center conductor of Heliax cables with 100 dB/meter shielding effectiveness at 10 MH to 100 MHz. Even coax using copper water pipe as the shield was going to have trouble with those ground loops.

The solution was to make the reference-signal receivers transformer coupled. The transformer was like five turns wound as a tororid on a one- or two-hole ferrite bead. There was a RF coupling capacitor between coax center conductor and the input of the RF transformer, which transformer had essentially no coupling at power frequencies.

The coupling capacitor reduced the power-frequency current through the transformer enough to prevent saturation of the transformer core, and the transformer eliminated any power-frequency component that did get by the capacitor from making it though the transformer.

Because skin depth depends on both magnetic permeability and electric perceptivity, ferromagnetic metals like mu metal can perform EM shielding at fairly low frequencies. Actually, ordinary mild steel ain't bad either, and is a whole lot less fussy than mu metal.

Joe Gwinn

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Joe Gwinn
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On 2021-02-27 19:55, Joe Gwinn wrote: [...]

Thanks for that. I'm currently battling an interference problem where a biggish kicker magnet spoils the mV beam signals in my beam position monitors in a particle accelerator.

I've been inserting transformers in the signal path, but the possibility of the interferer saturating my transformers didn't yet occur to me. I have to look into that.

Jeroen Belleman

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Jeroen Belleman

I found the book. I got my copy when my employer closed a facility, and let employee vultures gather round the now reduindant library.

The best reference on this is Shelkunoff, "Electromagnetic Waves", 3rd Edition, Van Nostrand 1943, 530 pages, specifically Section 8.18 "Shielding Theory", starting on page 303.

Joe Gwinn

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Joe Gwinn

Thanks, Joe--I found it on archive.org. Just turning to P. 303 now.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

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Phil Hobbs

Welcome to the committee of vultures.

My copy is old and yellow and brittle, and dated by the library as having been bought on 8 February 1946. This is roughly a year before I was born.

Joe Gwinn

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Joe Gwinn

The archive.org copy is pretty well illegible unfortunately, so I ordered a copy on abebooks.com.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

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Phil Hobbs

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