EMI shielding effectiveness characterization of carbon and metal filler FFF polymer composites

Abstract

Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) has become one of the widely adopted prototyping utilities for both consumer and industrial product development cycles. One of the main disadvantages of FFF used to be the availability of application-specific filament material. However, in recent years, due to the popularity of desktop rapid prototyping, both the number of filament manufacturers and the different types of filaments have increased. In this research work, Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) Shielding Effectiveness (SE) properties of some potentially viable and commercially off-the-shelf available FFF filaments were tested. The analysis provides a basic overview of the possibility of cost-effective rapid prototyping EMI Shielding solutions. The results indicate that the nylon composite with carbon fiber provided the best SE among the chosen candidates, while the polyethylene terephthalate composite provided the most cost-effective solution. Since all the filaments can be easily bought and utilized in a typical desktop 3D printer, the development of multi-material, multilayered enclosures with complex geometries may offer enhanced SE.