Faraday Shielding for Critical Infrastructure

The Air Force is seeking commercial solutions for protecting critical infrastructure and electronic systems from the effects of EMPs. These EMPs could be the result of anything from solar storms to high-altitude nuclear blasts. The Air Force is looking at five hey areas of interest, and Touchstone Research Lab (Touchstone) intends to focus on key area one, Advanced EMP Shielding and Hardening Technologies. Touchstone has performed work on EMP shielding for over two decades. Most recently, the Faraday shielding system has been developed for use as an integrated lightning and thermal protection system for silo-launched interceptors. Faraday is a carbon-based system providing excellent environmental and thermal stability. Its multi-layer approach to shielding allows it to be custom-tailored to a variety of applications, and each layer can be optimized for unique situations. The Faraday layup includes a lighting protection layer (LPS) that is highly conductive in-plane, but not through-plane. This allows the energy from strikes to be spread across the surface, mitigating damage. The anisotropy of the LPS also has the benefit of shielding against electromagnetic pulses and interference. This has been exhibited through HEMP testing per MIL-STD-461G/MIL-STD-464C, which resulted in a -21dB attenuation of the field strength. The bulk of Faraday consists of CFOAM, a coal-based carbon foam, as the Thermal Protection System of the panels. Faraday also has an optional radiation protection layer that can provide shielding against X-rays and Beta rays. Under the Phase I effort, Touchstone intends to modify the Faraday system to meet the shielding standards desired by the Air Force. This will begin with discussions with the Air Force and research to determine the specific shielding requirements sought in the solicitation topic. Once understood, those requirements can be applied to the current Faraday design to alter it for use in this application. The focus will likely be on adjustments or substitutions to the LPS to optimize it for EMP protection over lightning strikes. Depending on Air Force needs, this layer may be isolated for use as a stand-alone EMP shield. Testing will be instrumental in guiding these design adjustments and verifying the resulting panels. Touchstone will also seek to determine how Faraday needs adjusted for installation onto infrastructure. At a minimum, the reporting of this program will be carried out through four main avenues: 1) Kickoff meeting to clarify Air Force expectations and Touchstone’s plan. 2) Midterm report to convey Touchstone’s progress. 3) Summary Meeting toward the end of the program for Touchstone to present its findings. And 4) a program final report. By the end of this Phase I, Touchstone intends to have a thorough understanding of the Air Force’s expectations and requirements, a feasible Faraday design for infrastructure shielding, and a plan for a Phase II program to refine this design for production.