RF And Magnetic Shielding

At Spartan Shielding we manufacture and install many types of shielding products and provide testing and modification services for MRI rooms and centers that are experiencing poor quality imaging.

Below provides some educational content on the different types of shielding and also other factors that affect the shielding industry.
You can click on the “shielding” categories to be directed to our PRODUCTS page to see pictures of our shielding products.

Electromagnetic Shielding

Electromagnetic shielding is the practice of reducing the electromagnetic field in a space by blocking the field with barriers made of conductive or magnetic materials. Shielding is typically applied to enclosures to isolate electrical devices from the ‘outside world’, and to cables to isolate wires from the environment through which the cable runs. Electromagnetic shielding that blocks radio frequency electromagnetic radiation is also known as RF shielding.

The shielding can reduce the coupling of radio waves, electromagnetic fields and electrostatic fields. A conductive enclosure used to block electrostatic fields is also known as a Faraday cage. The amount of reduction depends very much upon the material used, its thickness, the size of the shielded volume and the frequency of the fields of interest and the size, shape and orientation of apertures in a shield to an incident electromagnetic field.

Radio frequency (RF) is a rate of oscillation in the range of around 3 kHz to 300 GHz, which corresponds to the frequency of radio waves, and the alternating currents which carry radio signals. RF usually refers to electrical rather than mechanical oscillations; however, mechanical RF systems do exist (see mechanical filter and RF MEMS).

Although radio frequency is a rate of oscillation, the term “radio frequency” or its abbreviation “RF” are also used as a synonym for radio – i.e. to describe the use of wireless communication, as opposed to communication via electric wires.

Electric currents that oscillate at radio frequencies have special properties not shared by direct current or alternating current of lower frequencies.

• The energy in an RF current can radiate off a conductor into space as electromagnetic waves (radio waves); this is the basis of radio technology.
• RF current does not penetrate deeply into electrical conductors but tends to flow along their surfaces; this is known as the skin effect. For this reason, when the human body comes in contact with high power RF currents it can cause superficial but serious burns called RF burns.
• RF currents applied to the body often do not cause the painful sensation of electric shock as do lower frequency currents.[2][3] This is because the current changes direction too quickly to trigger depolarization of nerve membranes.
• RF current can easily ionize air, creating a conductive path through it. This property is exploited by “high frequency” units used in electric arc welding, which use currents at higher frequencies than power distribution uses.
• Another property is the ability to appear to flow through paths that contain insulating material, like the dielectric insulator of a capacitor.
• When conducted by an ordinary electric cable, RF current has a tendency to reflect from discontinuities in the cable such as connectors and travel back down the cable toward the source, causing a condition called standing waves, so RF current must be carried by specialized types of cable called transmission line.

Electromagnetic Interference (EMI)

applications: Magnets, Microscope, Electrical, Secure platforms
Industry: Hospital, Laboratory, Government
Links: EMI Products    EMI Services

Electromagnetic interference (EMI, also called radio-frequency interference or RFI when in radio frequency) is disturbance that affects an electrical circuit due to either electromagnetic induction or electromagnetic radiation emitted from an external source.[1] The disturbance may interrupt, obstruct, or otherwise degrade or limit the effective performance of the circuit. These effects can range from a simple degradation of data to a total loss of data.[2] The source may be any object, artificial or natural, that carries rapidly changing electrical currents, such as an electrical circuit, the Sun or the Northern Lights.

EMI can be intentionally used for radio jamming, as in some forms of electronic warfare, or can occur unintentionally, as a result of spurious emissions for example through intermodulation products, and the like. It frequently affects the reception of AM radio in urban areas. It can also affect cell phone, FM radio and television reception, although to a lesser extent

Magnetic Shielding

Equipment sometimes requires isolation from external magnetic fields. For static or slowly varying magnetic fields (below about 100 kHz) the Faraday shielding described above is ineffective. In these cases shields made of high magnetic permeability metal alloys can be used, such as sheets of Permalloy and Mu-Metal,[5] or with nanocrystalline grain structure ferromagnetic metal coatings.[6] These materials don’t block the magnetic field, as with electric shielding, but rather draw the field into themselves, providing a path for the magnetic field lines around the shielded volume. The best shape for magnetic shields is thus a closed container surrounding the shielded volume. The effectiveness of this type of shielding depends on the material’s permeability, which generally drops off at both very low magnetic field strengths and at high field strengths where the material becomes saturated. So to achieve low residual fields, magnetic shields often consist of several enclosures one inside the other, each of which successively reduces the field inside it.

Because of the above limitations of passive shielding, an alternative used with static or low-frequency fields is active shielding; using a field created by electromagnets to cancel the ambient field within a volume.[7] Solenoids and Helmholtz coils are types of coils that can be used for this purpose.

Additionally, superconducting materials can expel magnetic fields via the Meissner effect.

Radiation (RAD) Shielding

applications: Linear Accelerators, Cyclotrons, CT, PET/MRI, Holding & Injector rooms, Nuclear Areas, HDR, Proton Therapy
Industry: Hospital, Laboratory, Government
Links: Rad Products    Rad Services

Different types of ionizing radiation interact in different ways with shielding material. The effectiveness of shielding is dependent on the Stopping power of radiation particles, which varies with the type and energy of radiation and the shielding material used. Different shielding techniques are therefore used dependent on the application and the type and energy of the radiation.

Particle radiation Particle radiation consists of a stream of charged or neutral particles, both charged ions and subatomic elementary particles. This includes solar wind, cosmic radiation, and neutron flux in nuclear reactors.

• Alpha particles (helium nuclei) are the least penetrating. Even very energetic alpha particles can be stopped by a single sheet of paper.
• Beta particles (electrons) are more penetrating, but still can be absorbed by a few millimeters of aluminum. However, in cases where high energy beta particles are emitted shielding must be accomplished with low density materials, e.g. plastic, wood, water, or acrylic glass (Plexiglas, Lucite).[3] This is to reduce generation of Bremsstrahlung X-rays. In the case of beta+ radiation (positrons), the gamma radiation from the electron-positron annihilation reaction poses additional concern.
• Neutron radiation is not as readily absorbed as charged particle radiation, which makes this type highly penetrating. Neutrons are absorbed by nuclei of atoms in a nuclear reaction. This most-often creates a secondary radiation hazard, as the absorbing nuclei transmute to the next-heavier isotope, many of which are unstable.
• Cosmic radiation is not a common concern, as the Earth’s atmosphere absorbs it and the magnetosphere acts as a shield, but it poses a problem for satellites and astronauts. Frequent fliers are also at a slight risk. Cosmic radiation is extremely high energy, and is very penetrating.

Electromagnetic radiation Electromagnetic radiation consists of emissions of electromagnetic waves, the properties of which depend on the wavelength.

• X-ray and gamma radiation are best absorbed by atoms with heavy nuclei; the heavier the nucleus, the better the absorption. In some special applications, depleted uranium or thorium[4] are used, but lead is much more common; several centimeters are often required. Barium sulfate is used in some applications too. However, when cost is important, almost any material can be used, but it must be far thicker. Most nuclear reactors use thick concrete shields to create a bioshield with a thin water cooled layer of lead on the inside to protect the porous concrete from the coolant inside. The concrete is also made with heavy aggregates, such as Baryte, to aid in the shielding properties of the concrete. Gamma rays are better absorbed by materials with high atomic numbers and high density, although neither effect is important compared to the total mass per area in the path of the gamma ray.
• Ultraviolet (UV) radiation is ionizing in its shortest wavelengths but it is not penetrating, so it can be shielded by thin opaque layers such as sunscreen, clothing, and protective eyewear. Protection from UV is simpler than for the other forms of radiation above, so it is often considered separately.

In some cases, improper shielding can actually make the situation worse, when the radiation interacts with the shielding material and creates secondary radiation that absorbs in the organisms more readily. For example, although high atomic number materials are very effective in shielding photons, using them to shield beta particles may cause higher radiation exposure due to the production of bremsstrahlung x-rays, and hence low atomic number materials are recommended. Also, using material with a high neutron activation cross section to shield neutrons will result in the shielding material itself becoming radioactive and hence more dangerous than if it were not present.

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