Composite Structures 66 (2004) 533–542

www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct

Characterization of electromagnetic properties of

polymeric composite materials with free space method
Il Sung Seo, Woo Seok Chin, Dai Gil Lee *

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical Design Laboratory with Advanced Materials, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and
Technology, ME3221, 373-1 Guseong-dong, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon-shi 305-701, South Korea
Available online 4 June 2004

Abstract
The introduction of microwave radars during the second World War altered the air defense scenario significantly, and this led to
the development of the ‘‘stealth’’ techniques. By reducing the detectability of aircrafts or warships, of which the radar cross section
(RCS) is a measure, they could evade radar detection, which affected not only the mission success rate but also survival of them in
the hostile territory. In the very early stage of the research on stealth techniques, many researches were mainly concentrated on the
reduction of RCS and development of radar absorbing materials (RAM), but nowadays studies on investigating the radar absorbing
structures (RAS) using fiber reinforced polymeric composite materials are becoming popular research field.
In this study, electromagnetic characteristics of unidirectional E-glass fiber reinforced epoxy composites were tested with free
space methods, which can overcome drawbacks of conventional cavity and waveguide methods. Complex relative permittivities of
low-loss composite were measured with respect to the angle between the fiber orientation and the electric field vector of EM wave in
X-band frequency range. From the experimental data, empirical relation between the dielectric properties of composites and test
variable was suggested and verified.

2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Stealth; RAS (radar absorbing structures); Complex relative permittivity; Loss tangent; Radar; Free space method; Low-loss composite

1. Introduction more important [1]. By reducing the detectability of

Since microwave radars were introduced during the
second World War, they have been the overwhelming
threat to aircrafts because they can detect distant air-
borne targets independent of weather and diurnal vari-
ations. Radar is the abbreviated word of ‘‘radio
detection and ranging’’ and designates the equipment or
facility for detecting distant objects using electromag-
netic (EM) waves. Since the EM waves employed by the
radars traverse at the speed of light to detect aircraft, the
modest speed of the contemporary aircrafts were hardly
a match for the radar capabilities. Furthermore, over
the years, radar technology have been improved drasti-
cally with the use of high-powered large bandwidth
transmitters, thereby the developments of the ‘‘stealth’’
technologies for evading radar detection have become
* stealth considerations, it may not be acceptable to the
Corresponding author. Tel.: +82-42-869-3221; fax: +82-42-869-
5221/3210.
E-mail address: dglee@kaist.ac.kr (D.G. Lee).
URL: http://lacomrs6.kaist.ac.kr.
0263-8223/$ - see front matter
2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compstruct.2004.04.076
target like aircrafts or missiles, of which the radar cross
section (RCS) is a measure, they could evade radar
detection, which affected not only the mission success
rate but also survival of them in the hostile territory [1].
Several techniques have been suggested for RCS
reduction, which are broadly classified into three cate-
gories: shaping of the target, radar absorbing materials
(RAM) and radar absorbing structures (RAS).
Shaping involves modifying the external features of
the target to reduce the EM waves backscattered to the
direction of radar source and to redirect them. But, in
this case, reduction is achieved only in a limited angular
region at the expense of increase RCS in other regions.
Also, it is effective only at higher frequencies, which
frequently conflicts with structural and aerodynam-
ics requirements in designing the aerospace vehicles.
Although the external profile might be desirable from
aerospace vehicle designers [1].
The RCS reduction by covering the scatterer
with RAM can be achieved by both absorption and
534 I.S. Seo et al. / Composite Structures 66 (2004) 533–542
redirection of incident EM energy. RAM are essentially
materials characterized by large values for the imaginary
part of the permittivity or permeability. The corre-
sponding materials are identified as the dielectric RAM
and the magnetic RAM, respectively. The mechanism of
RCS reduction by RAM is due to the significant
absorption of EM waves as it propagates through the
coating. It was known that RAM is a very effective
means of RCS reduction in the context of stealth tech-
nology. However, it has to be applied on to the aircrafts
thickly, which changes the exterior profile of them sig-
nificantly and interferes with their flight characteristics
[1]. Also it increases the weight of aircrafts and cannot
be used in the wide band of frequencies. Furthermore,
since it has not only poor environmental endurance but
also poor mechanical properties, it cannot be used for
structural purposes and need periodical repairs.
In order to overcome the drawbacks of RAM, the
concept of RAS was suggested and several design criteria
of it have been developed. Basically, RAS are the
structures that have both the function of load bearing
and the EM energy absorbing capability, but it obviously
do not interfere with the external profiles set by the air-
craft designers. In the very early stage of the research on
stealth techniques, many researches were mainly con-
centrated on the reduction of RCS by shaping and
RAM, but nowadays studies on investigating RAS using
fiber reinforced polymeric composite materials are
becoming popular research field [2]. Since the electro-
magnetic properties of fiber reinforced polymeric com-
posites can be tailored effectively by just adding some
electromagnetic powders, such as carbon black, ferrite,
carbonyl iron, etc., to the matrix of composites, they are
plausible materials for fabricating the RAS of desired
performance. In other words, the construction of poly-
meric composite RAS could be achieved by regulating
the electric property (complex permittivity) or magnetic
property (complex permeability) of material. For this
purpose, accurate values of electromagnetic properties in
the target frequency band should be known clearly.
Also the concept of wideband, multilayered Jaumann
absorbers, in which the incident EM waves are dissi-
pated through phase cancellation and impedance
matching, can be applicable to design the composite
RAS with broadband characteristics. Since this Jau-
mann type radar absorber consists of many resistive
sheets, low-loss and low-permittivity spacers for sepa-
rating those sheets and a conducting backup plate [3],
polymeric composites with low-loss and low-permittiv-
ity can be used as spacers in order to match the electric
requirements of the absorber. In order to design a Jau-
mann absorber with composites, their dielectric prop-
erties should be known precisely and could be regulated
easily in target frequency range. However, it is known
that the exact values of electric properties of anisotropic
composite are not only difficult to obtain but also there
are few available data of them because of military se-
crets of each country.
Therefore, in this study, electromagnetic properties of
unidirectional glass fiber reinforced epoxy composite
were tested with respect to the fiber orientation through
the free space method, which is known as an adequate
method for measuring those of anisotropic and inho-
mogeneous materials like composites [4]. Since the glass
fiber reinforced epoxy composite used in this study is an
essentially dielectric material with low-loss charac-
teristics, only the electric properties were measured in
X-band frequency range (8.2–12.4 GHz) varying the
angle between the electric field vector of EM wave and
the fiber orientation of specimen. From the experiment,
complex permittivities of glass fiber reinforced com-
posites were obtained in the X-band, in which it has
been found that the real part of complex permittivity has
the tendency to decrease with respect to the angle be-
tween the electric field vector and the fiber orientation.
The transformation matrix for permittivity tensor was
proposed to estimate the value of real part of complex
permittivity at the arbitrary angle between the electric
field vector and the fiber orientation, and it was found
that the permittivities by the proposed transformation
matrix matched well with the measured values.
2. Free space measurement system
In the past, the free space methods for measuring
complex permittivities were used at the frequencies
above 30 GHz [5–7]. However, the precision horn lens
antennas which have far-field focusing ability and the
recent advance in microwave network analyzer make it
possible to measure the electromagnetic properties
accurately with free space method at microwave fre-
quencies (300 MHz–300 GHz) [4]. Traditionally, the
electromagnetic properties of materials, such as complex
permittivity and complex permeability, have been mea-
sured using waveguide, coaxial, or cavity methods. The
free space measurement technique is preferred over
traditional ones for the following reasons. (1) The EM
properties of inhomogeneous and/or anisotropic mate-
rials such as ceramics, composites, etc., can be accu-
rately measured without excitation of higher order
modes, which is seldom possible in the traditional
methods. (2) Since the measurement is performed in
nondestructive and contactless manner, it is preferred
over conventional methods for measurements under
high and low temperature condition. (3) In coaxial and
waveguide methods, the specimen must be machined so
as to fit the testing device with negligible air gaps. This
requirement tends to limit the accuracy of measurements
for materials which cannot be machined precisely.
While, there is little sample preparation required for free
space measurements [4].
 I.S. Seo et al. / Composite Structures 66 (2004) 533–542 535

The free space measurement system (HVS Technol-
ogies, Pennsylvania, USA) used in this study is com-
posed of a pair of spot-focusing horn lens antennas
(transmit and receive antennas), a specimen holder,
HP8510C network analyzer, and a personal computer
for data acquisition as shown in Fig. 1. The spot-
focusing horn lens antennas are connected to the two
ports of an S-parameter test set of HP8510C network
analyzer by using circular-to-rectangular waveguide
adapters, which are connected to precision coaxial cable
via line adapters. S-parameter measurements in free
space were performed with a Hewlett-Packard 8510C
network analyzer system consisting of a synthesized
sweeper and S-parameter test set. The network analyzer
is used to make precision measurements of S-parameters
of the specimen in free space.
Transmit and receive spot-focusing horn lens anten-
nas are attached to micrometer-driven carriages which
are mounted on a precisely machined aluminum table.
Two antennas are separated by a distance equal to the
twice the focal distance (305 mm) which can be varied
with an accuracy of 1 lm. The spot-focusing horn lens
antenna consists of two equal plano-convex dielectric
lenses mounted back to back in a conical horn antenna.
The 3-dB width of focused beam produced by dielectric
lens at 10 GHz is about 30 mm at the common focal
plane. The ratio of focal distance to diameter of the lens
ðF =DÞ is 1 and D is approximately 305 mm. Since elec-
tromagnetic plane waves can be generated at the com-
mon focal plane by using the spot-focusing horn lens
antennas as shown in Fig. 2, diffraction effects at the
edges of the specimen are negligible if the minimum
transverse dimension of the specimen is greater than
three times the beam widths of the antenna at the focus
[4,8]. The frequency range of spot-focusing horn lens
antenna set used in this study is X-band (8.2–12.4 GHz)
which generally called as a military band.
The specimen holder mounted on a micrometer-dri-
ven carriage of 1 lm resolution is placed at the common
focal plane for holding planar specimens and can hold

Fig. 1. Free space measurement system for characterization of electromagnetic properties of materials: (a) schematic configuration of the free space
measurement system, (b) photographs of the free space measurement system (HVS Technologies, Pennsylvania, USA).
536 I.S. Seo et al. / Composite Structures 66 (2004) 533–542
Fig. 2. Plane wave nature of electromagnetic fields in the spot-focusing horn lens antennas.
the specimens with nominal dimensions of 150 mm by
150 mm. In measurement for electromagnetic properties
of materials, two options, through and reflection, can be
used. The former is for measuring both the dielectric and
magnetic properties and the later is for measuring the
dielectric properties with metal-backed specimen.
3. TRL calibration and measuring theory
The free space method has the possibility of inaccu-
racies in dielectric measurements caused by diffraction
effects at the edge of the sample and multiple reflections
between the two horns via the surface of the sample [9].
In order to minimize those measurement inaccuracies,
the spot-focusing horn lens antennas (for minimizing
diffraction effects) and the TRL (through-reflect-line)
calibration technique (for minimizing multiple reflec-
tions) were used in this measurement system [4]. The
two-port TRL (through-reflect-line) calibration tech-
nique along with time–domain gating was implemented
in order to remove the effects of multiple reflections. In a
coaxial transmission medium, the open, short, matched
termination, and through standards have been generally
used for two-port calibration of S-parameters (scatter-
ing parameters; reflection and transmission coefficients
of electric filed strength). However, it has been shown
that the TRL calibration technique is superior to the
open, short, matched termination calibration technique
for a coaxial line [10] and can produce the calibration of
the highest quality available at microwave frequencies
[11]. Furthermore, the TRL calibration is easier to
implement in noncoaxial media like free space as com-
pared with other calibration techniques. The TRL
standards in free space were obtained by the TRL cali-
bration and Fig. 3 shows the schematic configurations of
the free space measurement system for acquiring those
TRL standards. The through standard is realized by
keeping the distance between two antennas equal to
twice the focal distance. The reflect standard is achieved
by placing a metal plate at the common focal plane of
the two antennas. The line standard is obtained by
separating the focal planes of transmit and receive
antennas by a distance equal to a quarter of the free
space wavelength at the center of the band. By per-
forming the TRL calibration using those three free space
standards, the two-port TRL calibration for free space
was obtained. For measuring S11 (reflection coefficient of
electric field strength) and S21 (transmission coefficient
of electric field strength) of a planar specimen, the ref-
erence planes corresponding to transmit and receive
antennas were located at the front and back face of the
specimen, respectively. Also, time–domain gating was
used to minimize the errors due to source mismatch and
load impedance mismatch [12]. For the time–domain
gating, frequency–domain data were obtained for S11
and S21 and then the time–domain S-parameter (S11 and
S12 ) response was obtained by taking the inverse Fourier
transformation of the frequency–domain data. Then,
the time–domain gating was applied over the time–do-
main response which included the main reflection (or
transmission) response and multiple reflections within
the sample. The time–domain gating was applied such
that the gated frequency–domain response was an
approximated average of the ungated response. The
gating feature of the HP8510C network analyzer was
used for time–domain gating.
For measurement of dielectric constant, the complex
reflection coefficients S11 were measured by placing a
perfectly conducting plate behind the plate of unknown
material while the front face of the sample was located
at the focal plane of the transmit antenna as shown in
Fig. 4. From the transmission line theory, S11 for normal
incidence plane wave is related to the complex relative
permittivity ðer ¼ e0r  je00r ¼ e0r ð1  j tandÞÞ as shown in
Eq. (1).
jZS tanðbS dÞ  1
S11 ¼ ð1Þ
jZS tanðbS dÞ þ 1
where ZS is the normalized intrinsic impedance of the
nonmagnetic specimen and is given by
1
ZS ¼ pffiffiffiffi ð2Þ
er
 I.S. Seo et al. / Composite Structures 66 (2004) 533–542 537

Fig. 3. Schematic configuration of the free space measurement system for acquiring TRL standards: (a) configuration for the through standard,
(b) configuration for the reflect standard, (c) configuration for the line standard.

Fig. 4. Specimen set-up for measuring the dielectric properties by the reflection option.

The phase constant bS of the specimen is expressed in above three equations and measured data. This was done
terms of k and er as shown in Eq. (3). by using the zeros of the error function as shown in Eq. (4).
2p pffiffiffiffi
bS ¼ er ð3Þ m
E ¼ jS11 c
 S11 j ð4Þ
k
m c
where k is the wavelength of EM wave in the free space and where S11 and S11 are measured and calculated values of
d is the thickness of the specimen. Since the complex per- complex reflection coefficients, respectively.
mittivity er cannot be expressed explicitly in terms of S11 In order to calculate the zeros of the error function
and d, it can be found by numerical method using the of Eq. (4), Muller method was used [4,13]. At the zero
538 I.S. Seo et al. / Composite Structures 66 (2004) 533–542

of the error function, the complex relative permittivities

of the specimens could be obtained with respect to the
frequency of EM wave.

4. Experiments and results

In this study, the dielectric properties of E-glass/

epoxy composites were measured by free space method,
from which the relations between the orientation of fiber
and the electric field vector of EM wave were experi-
mentally obtained. The planar specimens for measuring
the reflection coefficient of electric field strength S11 were
Fig. 5. Curing cycle for the autoclave vacuum bag molding process.
fabricated by an autoclave vacuum bag molding process
using the unidirectional E-glass/epoxy prepreg
(UGN150, SK Chemical, Seoul, Korea), whose material
properties are listed in Table 1. The specimens were
manufactured by stacking 30 plies of the prepregs uni-
directionally and curing under the curing cycle shown in
Fig. 5. During curing process, a vacuum and the air
pressure of 0.6 MPa were applied. Prior to the autoclave
curing, an aluminum foil of 16 lm thickness was at-
tached to one side of the final stacked prepreg plate, and
co-cure bonded. A pair of the polished steel plates
shown in Fig. 6 was used for the mold for specimens.
During the measurement of reflection coefficient S11; all
of the electromagnetic waves incident on the specimen
by the transmit antenna could be reflected at the surface
of aluminum foil. The cured planar composite specimen
Fig. 6. Polished steel planar mold for fabricating the free space spec-
was machined to the size of 150 mm by 150 mm using a
imen.
diamond wheel cutter. The thickness of the specimen
measured at the eight points of the specimen by a
micrometer was 3.308 ± 0.018 mm, and the measured fiber reinforced epoxy composites is less than 0.1 but not
fiber volume fraction and weight fraction of the speci- extremely low [14], in this study, the reflection option of
men were 53.6% and 69.9%, respectively. the free space measurement system with a metal-backed
The complex relative permittivities (dielectric con- specimen was used for obtaining the complex relative
stants, er ) and loss tangent (tan d) of low-loss materials permittivities of E-glass/epoxy composite.
like glass/epoxy composites can be obtained by the free Using the free space measurement system shown in
space measurement system with a metal-backed speci- Fig. 1, the TRL calibration was performed in order to
men [12]. But for the extremely low-loss material with minimize the measurement inaccuracies and the error
loss tangent less than 0.003, the loss tangent cannot be bound of S11 ð0:00524 dB 6 S11 6 0:00652 dBÞ was
measured accurately by the free space method because obtained, which designated the maximum and minimum
the measuring errors of the reflection and the trans- amplitudes of the reflection coefficient ðS11 Þ in free space
mission coefficients are too large to obtain the loss media. To confirm the accuracy of the free space mea-
tangent from them [4]. Since the loss tangent of glass surement system, the value of the dielectric constant
ðe0r ¼ 2:63Þ of the Rexolite 2200 plate (C-LEC Plastics
Table 1
Material properties of the unidirectional E-glass/epoxy prepreg Table 2
(UGN150) Electrical material properties of the Rexolite 2200
Properties Value Properties Value
Ply thickness (mm) 0.122 Dielectric constant (1 MHz–500 GHz) 2.62
Surface density (kg/m2 ) 0.224 Loss tangent at 1 MHz 0.004
Fiber surface density (kg/m2 ) 0.150 at 10 MHz 0.005
Resin content (%) 33 at 10 GHz 0.014
Density of E-glass fiber (kg/m3 ) 2.54 · 103 Volume resistivity (Ohm m) 5 · 1011
Density of epoxy resin (kg/m3 ) 1.2 · 103 Surface resistivity (Ohm) 5 · 1012
 I.S. Seo et al. / Composite Structures 66 (2004) 533–542
Inc., Philadelphia, USA) of 6.377 mm thickness mea-
sured by the free space measurement system was com-
pared with the value obtained by the traditional
resonant cavity method. Since the free space method
was not accurate for measuring the imaginary part of
complex permittivities of extremely low-loss dielectric
materials [4], the imaginary part of complex permittivi-
ties was excluded in the comparison. Rexolite 2200
whose electrical material properties are given in Table 2
are known as extremely low-loss materials and its
dielectric constant is 2.62 at the frequency range of 1
Fig. 7. Geometrical configuration of the EM wave and the unidirec-
tional composite.
Fig. 8. Magnitude and phase of S11 of the unidirectional E-glass/epoxy
composite specimen with respect to the frequency when h is 0: (a)
magnitude jS11 j, (b) phase of S11 .
539
MHz–500 GHz. There was a good agreement between
the value obtained by the free space measurement and
that obtained by the traditional resonant cavity method.
After performing the free space calibration and con-
firming the accuracy of measurement system, the uni-
directional E-glass/epoxy composite plate specimen was
placed on the specimen holder for measuring the
reflection coefficients, S11 . The complex reflection coef-
ficients ðS11 ¼ jS11 jeju Þ of the composite specimen were
measured in the frequency range of 8.2–12.4 GHz, while
the angle, h, between the electric field vector of EM wave
and the fiber orientation of the specimen as shown in
Fig. 7 was varied from 0 to 90 with the increment of
10. The magnitude ðjS11 jÞ and phase ðuÞ of reflection
coefficients S11 with respect to the frequencies at h ¼ 0
was shown in Fig. 8. Then, the complex relative per-
mittivity ðer Þ and loss tangent ðtan dÞ were calculated
with respect to the frequencies from the measured
reflection coefficients S11 and the values of er and tan d
with respect to the frequencies at h ¼ 0 was shown in
Fig. 9. The value of complex relative permittivity and
loss tangent with respect to the angle at 10 GHz fre-
quency are shown in Table 3, and Fig. 10 shows the
plotted graph of the data given in Table 3. Fig. 9(b)
shows the values of imaginary part of er and tan d with
respect to the frequencies of EM waves when h was 0,
in which the imaginary part of complex relative per-
mittivity ðe00r Þ and tan d had very similar tendencies
irrespective of the change of h. The dielectric constants
of the E-glass/epoxy composite tested in this study were
in the range of 4.95–5.03 and the loss tangents were in
the range of 0.02–0.05.
5. Discussions and remarks
The previous experimental results had some errors
caused by the uncertainties in S11 measurements and
those in the thickness measurement of the specimen. It
was known that the uncertainties in S11 measurements
using the network analyzer are low for the high values of
S11 [15] and jS11 j has its maximum when
d ¼ ð2n þ 1Þkm =4 (d and km are the thickness and the
wavelength in the medium respectively, n ¼ 0; 1; 2; . . .)
due to a quarter-wave transformer effect [12]. Therefore,
to minimize the errors caused by measurement uncer-
tainties, the specimen thickness should be close to an
odd multiple of km =4 (generally called as an electric
thickness). This feature limits the frequency range for an
accurate and reliable measurement at the given thickness
of specimen. When a loss tangent is much less than 1
ðtan d 1Þ, the electric thickness of lossy media can be
obtained by following equation
"  2 #
2p k0 1 e00r
km ¼ ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ffi 1 ð5Þ
bS l0r e0r 8 e0r
540 I.S. Seo et al. / Composite Structures 66 (2004) 533–542

Table 3
Complex relative permittivities and loss tangents of the unidirectional
E-glass/epoxy composite specimen with respect to the angle h at 10
GHz frequency
Angle e0r e00r tan d
0 5.004 0.1645 0.03287
10 5.013 0.2274 0.04537
20 4.932 0.1697 0.03441
30 4.905 0.1645 0.03354
40 4.828 0.1577 0.03266
50 4.769 0.1432 0.03003
60 4.718 0.1314 0.02785
70 4.649 0.1208 0.02598
80 4.625 0.1129 0.02440
90 4.619 0.1112 0.02408

Fig. 9. Complex relative permittivities and loss tangents of the uni-

directional E-glass/epoxy composite specimen: (a) complex relative
permittivities with respect to the frequency (h ¼ 0), (b) loss tangents Fig. 10. Variation of the real part of the complex relative permittivity
with respect to the frequency (h ¼ 0). of the unidirectional E-glass/epoxy composite specimen with respect to
the angle h at 10 GHz frequency.

where k0 is the wavelength in free space and lr is the

complex relative permeability ðlr ¼ l0r  jl00r Þ.
In the frequency range of 8.2–12.4 GHz, the electrical
thickness of the unidirectional E-glass/epoxy composite
specimen with respect to the angle h were calculated
using Eq. (5) and measured data, and the results were in
the range of 2.72–4.28 mm. In case of the specimen of
3.308 mm thickness used in this study, the frequencies
approximately corresponding to the electric thickness of
3.308 mm were different from each other with respect to
the angle h, and these values are shown in Table 4. At
the frequencies at each case shown in Table 4, the
dielectric properties of the specimen are most accurate
and reliable.
Therefore, in order to investigate the relations be-
tween the fiber orientation and the electric field vector of
EM wave, the values of dielectric constant at the
frequency of 10.4 GHz (centered frequency given in
Table 4) were used. Because E-glass/epoxy composite is
a low-loss material, only the dielectric constants (real
part of the complex relative permittivity) of the speci-
men were analyzed. The dielectric constants with respect
to the angle h at the frequency of 10.4 GHz were shown
in Table 5 and Fig. 11(a). The dielectric constants ðe0r Þ
monotonically decreased as the angle h was increased
from 0 to 90. Since the dielectric constant of glass and
epoxy resin are generally in the range of 5.9–6.4 and 3.0–
3.4 respectively [14], so the fiber orientation and the
value of the dielectric constant of glass might have the
major effect on the net dielectric constant of unidirec-
tional E-glass/epoxy composite specimen. In the case of
h ¼ 0, in which the electric field vector of EM wave and
the fiber orientation of the specimen were coincident, the
dielectric constant of the specimen was maximum. From
this result, it might be concluded that the electric dipole

Table 4
Frequencies approximately corresponding to the electric thickness of 3.308 mm at each angle h and the actual electric thickness at that frequency
Angle 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Frequency (GHz) 10.132 10.132 10.216 10.237 10.321 10.384 10.447 10. 531 10.552 10.573
Electric thickness (mm) 3.311 3.308 3.309 3.311 3.310 3.311 3.310 3.309 3.311 3.308
 I.S. Seo et al. / Composite Structures 66 (2004) 533–542 541

Table 5
" #
e0r;11 0
Complex relative permittivities and loss tangents of the unidirectional ½e0r;ij  ¼ ð6Þ
E-glass/epoxy composite specimen with respect to the angle h at 10.4 0 e0r;22
GHz frequency
Angle e0r e00r tan d where e0r;11 and e0r;22 represent the dielectric constant in
0 4.986 0.1578 0.03166 the fiber direction ðh ¼ 0Þ and perpendicular to fiber
10 4.982 0.2415 0.04847 direction ðh ¼ 90Þ, respectively. Since the direction
20 4.915 0.1621 0.03299 vector of EM wave used in this free space measurement
30 4.889 0.1578 0.03227 system is unique, the reciprocal influence between e0r;11
40 4.814 0.1516 0.03149
50 4.757 0.1421 0.02987
and e0r;22 could be ignored and the value of e0r;12 could be
60 4.705 0.1312 0.02788 set zero. Therefore, in order to explain the variation of
70 4.636 0.1210 0.02610 the dielectric constants with respect to the angle h, the
80 4.612 0.1133 0.02457 compacted form of the direction cosine matrix for two-
90 4.603 0.1111 0.02414 dimensional space was suggested as follows
 
cos2 h sin2 h
½J  ¼ ð7Þ
sin2 h cos2 h
Then the transformation equation for the second-order
tensor ½e0r;ij ði; j ¼ 1; 2Þ can be expressed as
 
0 h 0 cos2 h sin2 h 0
½er;ij  ¼ ½J ½er;ij  ¼ ½e  ð8Þ
sin2 h cos2 h r;ij
h
where ½e0r;ij  is the transformed dielectric constant tensor
of ½e0r;ij .
Using the above transformation equation suggested
in this study and the measured values of dielectric
properties given in Table 5 (e0r;11 ¼ 4:98565 and
e0r;22 ¼ 4:60308), the calculation of the dielectric con-
stants of UGN150 was performed with respect to the
angle h, and the results were compared with the exper-
imental values as shown in Fig. 11(b).
From the investigation, it was found that the calcu-
lated dielectric constants through Eq. (8) agreed well
with the measured ones of UGN 150. This means that
the dielectric constant of unidirectional E-glass/epoxy
composites at arbitrary angle with the polarization of
electric field vector could be calculated simply with
accuracy by transforming the values of e0r;11 and e0r;22 .
Therefore, the estimation of the effective dielectric con-
stants of the polymeric composites composed of unidi-
Fig. 11. Variation of the real part of the complex relative permittivity rectional prepregs might be possible. Also it will be
of the unidirectional E-glass/epoxy composite specimen and the com- feasible to control the dielectric properties of composites
parison of the experimental result with the calculation: (a) real part of
the complex relative with respect to the angle h (at 10.4 GHz), (b)
by regulating the stacking sequences of prepregs.
comparison of the experimental result with the calculation by sug-
gested transformation equation.
6. Conclusions

moments of the unidirectional E-glass/epoxy composite
were mainly aligned with the orientation of the glass
fiber and the dielectric constants of the unidirectional E-
glass/epoxy composite were dependent on the polariza-
tion of the electric field incident on the composite. From
this fact, the dielectric constants of the unidirectional E-
glass/epoxy composite could be expressed in terms of the
second-order tensor for two-dimensional space as fol-
lows
In order to design RAS (radar absorbing structures)
with polymeric composites, the dielectric material
properties of the unidirectional glass fiber reinforced
epoxy composite were measured through the free space
method rather than previous cavity and waveguide
methods. Then the relation between the fiber orientation
and electric field vector was experimentally obtained.
The dielectric constant of unidirectional E-glass/epoxy
composite at arbitrary angle with the electric field vector
542 I.S. Seo et al. / Composite Structures 66 (2004) 533–542
was calculated by transforming the values of e0r;11 and
e0r;22 the second-order dielectric tensor. The method
developed in this work was verified with the measured
data. From the investigation, the possibility to control
the dielectric properties of composites by regulating the
stacking sequences was found.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported financially by the Kor-
ean Government under NRL (National Research Lab-
oratory) projects and, in part, by BK 21 Project. Also it
was supported by ADD (Agency for Defense Develop-
ment) of the Korean Ministry of National Defense. The
authors would like to thank to their financial support.
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