Electromagnetic Shielding for Composite Shelters

The weakest link in the shielding protection for a current shelter is at the door seam. For the proposed shelter, the door seam will be shielded with a "Pressure Stabilized Gasket System" that was designed and tested by HEI under a previous Army (HDL) SBIR contract. This gasket system was tested with a contact pressure of 35 psi (corresponding to a SE of over 60 dB to H field at 150 kHz). This subscale test demonstrated that this design could operate for over 5000 cycles of door closings and openings without any fatigue failures. Alternatively, a heavy weight gasket system will be studied using the stress relaxation data for the gasket elastomeric core that was developed in this same HDL project. Both of these door seam shielding designs will be tailored for the proposed shelter to provide a 15 year service life. Design/fabrication will be studied concurrently. In addition to the door seam shielding, design work will emphasize new and existing shielding materials, joints and corners in EM shields. Matrix and reinforcement materials will be selected. Conceptual designs using several assembly will be prepared and assessed for efficiency.