Wall loss

Has anybody ever used an electromagnetic simulator to predict the transmission loss of a solid wall (brick wall, concrete etc). Theoretically it should not be difficult as the wall can be modelled as a block having a specific permittivity and conductivity and you assume a plane wave incident on the wall. Problem becomes slightly more complex for reinforced concrete because of the metal grid. Which simulator do you think would be best (easy to use) for the above job?

Best Regards
Cross

Hi, cross!

We succesfuly employed Microwave studio for loss prediction of shielding walls. We've used 2 open reect. waveguides.
Maybe I'll found some examples of our projects.
Rgz,
Eirp

Hi eirp
If you can dig out some examples that would be excellent. What was the complexity of your simulated wall? Did you carry out any measurements to verify the simulations?

Best regards
Cross

You can do a transmission line equivalent. Concrete walls are mostly oxidized silicon (sand) so er is 4 and loss tangent is 5e-3. This is similar to FR-4. At 2 GHz you get 10 dB/m and at 10 GHz you get about 50 dB/m so the main loss is the reflection coefficient at the outer surfaces and the scattering from the metal reinforcement bars.

Thanks Flatulent,
I guess in order to check for any frequency selective effects of the reinforcement bars you need to simulate the whole geometry. A simple
transmission line equivalent would not do the trick.

Best Regards
Cross