Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Title

Polymers

Volume

14

Issue

18

Publisher

MDPI

School

School of Engineering

RAS ID

51946

Funders

Australian Research Council Discovery Project

Grant Number

ARC Number : DP180104035

Comments

Wanasinghe, D., Aslani, F., & Ma, G. (2022). Effect of carbon fibres on electromagnetic-interference-shielding properties of geopolymer composites. Polymers, 14(18), Article 3750. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym14183750

Abstract

Many of the construction materials available are known to cause a drastic level of damage to the environment during their manufacturing stages. Hence, many researchers have attempted to formulate construction materials that are more environmentally friendly. Additionally, the rise in wireless communications in recent decades has seen a rapid increase in electromagnetic pollution and interference, which affects the functionality of sensitive electronic devices. This research is focused on fabricating a more sustainable construction material that could prevent electromagnetic interference for electronic devices housed inside. Carbon fibres of three different lengths were added in four variations to a geopolymer control mix to study their effect on electromagnetic interference shielding. The results showed that the amount of shielding produced by these composites increases with carbon fibre length and quantity. Morphological analyses showed that the interconnectivity of the fibres plays a crucial role in having a high level of shielding. While the flexural strength showed an improvement with the addition of carbon fibre, the compressive strength showed a slight reduction with the increase in carbon fibre length. The optimal level of shielding was produced by the specimen containing 0.7 % of 12 mm carbon fibre, which was the maximum amount of fibre of any length used in this study; the optimal level of shielding generated was 43.43 dB within the frequency range of 30 MHz to 1.5 GHz.

DOI

10.3390/polym14183750

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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Engineering Commons

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