Frequency response of E polarized sources over a lossy earth in the presence of two-dimensional shielding structures.

Abstract

Electromagnetic shielding by thin, perfectly conducting, two dimensional cylindrical shells over a lossy earth is investigated. The temporal frequency response of the exterior field due to a line source within the shell is computed for a shell described by a three sided, rectilinear structure whose opening faces the earth. The formulation allows shells of arbitrary cross-sectional shape to be analyzed. The earth is modeled as a homogeneous half-space with a planar boundary and frequency dependent electromagnetic properties. Two solution techniques are presented. In the first, the induced current is obtained through a numerical solution of the electric field integral equation (EFIE) at many discrete frequencies. It is found that the applicability of this formulation is limited since in the case of effective shielding, fields calculated from the EFIE are very sensitive to numerical errors. In the second technique the EFIE is again solved for the currents induced on the shell. The induced currents are used to calculate the electric field in the aperture which is used to solve a combined-source integral equation (CSIE) for the external fields. It is found that the CSIE does not suffer from the numerical ill-conditioning that plagues the EFIE, and is well behaved at all frequencies. Numerical results are presented which indicate that the shell-earth combination is very effective in shielding the internal source. Interior modes are weakly transmitted to the interior for the case of a purely dielectric earth. For a lossy half-space the resonances of the closed shell are enhanced. The related topic of scattering by perfectly conducting objects over a lossy earth is addressed. Numerical formulations for the solution of the integral equations are presented which deal with several troublesome aspects of the problem, including the incorporation of the correct edge singularities.