Materials and Design 32 (2011) 3017–3020

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Materials and Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matdes

Short Communication

Electromagnetic wave absorption properties of cement-based composites filled

with porous materials
Li Baoyi a, Duan Yuping a,⇑, Zhang Yuefang a,b, Liu Shunhua a
a
School of Materials and Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116085, China
b
College of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou, 510228, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: To solve more and more serious electromagnetic radiations, cement-based composites were prepared by
Received 10 September 2010 introducing porous materials into cement. The reflection losses were studied using arched testing
Accepted 4 December 2010 method in the frequency range of 1.7–18 GHz. The results showed that the absorption properties were
Available online 13 December 2010
improved obviously. The mechanisms of wave attenuation of the composites were discussed, which indi-
cated that the scattering and multi-scattering in porous beads played an important role. The filling ratio
of porous beads, the bead geometries as well as the conformation of cement all had noticeably influence
on the absorption properties. The lowest reflection loss of 22 dB was obtained at 5.6 GHz when the
specimen was filled with 50 vol.% expanded polystyrene, and the effective absorption bandwidth (less
than 10 dB) reached 10.6 GHz when the specimen was filled with 50 vol.% expanded polystyrene and
2 vol.% carbon black.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Nowadays, the serious electromagnetic radiations not only
influence the normal operation of electronic devices, but also do
harm to the health of human beings [1–3]. Thus, the demands for
developing electromagnetic wave absorbers with wider absorbing
bandwidths and more effective absorption properties are ever
increasing [4]. Especially, electromagnetic interference (EMI) pre-
venting for buildings is of increasing importance. Many absorbers
[5,6] have been developed to deal with this problem, most of which
are cement-based composites.
Cement is slightly conductive and its absorbing ability is poor,
but it is a practical way to improve the electromagnetic absorption
properties by introducing fillings or loadings. Generally research-
ers [7–10] develop cement absorbing composites by filling absor-
bents with large dielectric losses or magnetic losses, including
carbon, metal powders, magnetic ferrites and their fibers. Ferrite
material has excellent absorption performance in low frequency
ranges, and the weakness in high frequency ranges has compen-
sated for by improving the molecular composition of ferrites and
compounding with other materials. However, the weakness of
being heavy remains still. Dielectric absorbers have a weight
advantage but do not match up to the absorption effectiveness of
magnetic absorbers. Besides, absorbers which can suppress the
reflection from the frontal faces are developed by employing mul-
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 411 84708446, fax: +86 411 84709284.
E-mail address: duanyp@dlut.edu.cn (D. Yuping).
tilayer structures or special shapes [11]. But the complex processes
and the decrease of mechanical properties limit their application in
cement composites.
Porous materials are complex systems involving elastic struc-
tures and air cavities, with good properties such as low density
and high specific surface. Thus they are used widely in sound
absorbing materials. In recent researches [12], it has been reported
that the absorption properties of materials can be improved with
porous structures. The main factors influencing on the absorption
properties are given such as the pore size, relative density, the
sample thickness, and so on. In our study, absorbers with strong
absorbing peak and broad-band were prepared by introducing por-
ous materials into cement. The absorption properties and absorp-
tion mechanisms of cement composites were described and
analyzed, respectively. The effects on the absorbing effectiveness,
such as the contents, geometrics of porous beads and the confor-
mation of cement matrix, were also investigated.
2. Experimentation
The porous fillings used in our work were expanded polystyrene
(EPS), expanded perlite and porous schist. The cement and water
were first mixed in a UJZ-15 mortar mixer with the water–cement
ratio of 0.35. Porous beads were gradually added into the paste
with the designed volume fraction and mixed to uniform distribu-
tion. Then the mixture were poured into the oiled moulds with a
size of 200  200  15 mm3 and vibrated on a vibration table for
1 min. The specimen was smoothed with a float and then cured
at the room temperature for 28 days.

0261-3069/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.matdes.2010.12.017
3018 L. Baoyi et al. / Materials and Design 32 (2011) 3017–3020
The electromagnetic parameters of cement were tested by coax-
ial flange method with an Agilent 8720B vector network analyzer.
The reflection losses of specimens were tested by the arched test-
ing method in the frequency range of 1.7–18 GHz.
3. Theoretical analysis
3.1. The impedance characteristics of cement composites
To prepare an excellent absorber, a suppressive reflection loss R
is the prerequisite, which is bound up with the input impedance Zin
and expressed as [13]
  rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Z in  Z 0  l0 l pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
R ¼ 20log10  ; Z in ¼ tanhðj2pfd l0 e0 leÞ ð1Þ
Z in þ Z 0  e0 e
where d is the thickness, f is the frequency of the incident wave, Z0,
l0 and e0 are the impedance, permeability and permittivity of vac-
uum, l and e are the relative permeability and permittivity of the
absorber, respectively. For a perfect wave absorber R should be
infinitesimal, namely the absorber should have e equal to l with
both being as large as possible. However, the electromagnetic
parameters of pure cement are almost constant, of which
e1 ¼ e01  je001 ¼ 5  j0:2 and l1 ¼ l01  jl001 ¼ 1. Cement can attenu-
ate electromagnetic wave merely by the dielectric losses resulting
from some metal oxide and minerals in cement components. There-
fore the R of cement composites can be decreased by the perfor-
mances of optimizing the electromagnetic parameters and
providing new attenuation approaches. In our work, the decrease
of e by filling porous beads makes the permittivity close to perme-
ability, and the complex refraction and scattering in the porous
beads provides a new path for wave attenuation. Thus, the filling
of porous beads in cement leads to a marked improvement of wave
attenuation.
3.2. The scattering and absorption in hollow spherical-shell
The scattering and absorption of electromagnetic wave by het-
erogeneous materials is complex and the exact solution is impossi-
ble to find [14,15]. In our study, following conditions are assumed
to analyze the scattering and absorption of incident wave in ce-
ment composites: (i) the porous beads are homogeneous spherical,
electromagnetic transparent and isolated in composites; (ii) ce-
ment is coated uniformly on the surface of porous beads; (iii) the
interaction between the porous bead and cement is assumed to
be weak so that it can be neglected. Then the specimen can be
approximated as a combination of a number of hollow spheres,
of which the cores are porous beads and the shells are cement
walls as shown in Fig. 1. The incident wave would be attenuated
by the complex refraction and scattering as well as the dielectric
losses by cement matrix when it propagates in the specimen.
Fig. 1. Sketch of the propagation of electromagnetic wave in single hollow sphere.
Fig. 1 shows the propagation of electromagnetic wave in single
hollow sphere. The wave attenuation of single hollow sphere Iatt,
the absorption attenuation of reflected wave Iref and scattering
attenuation of scattered wave Isca should conform to the energy
conservation law, namely, I0 = Iref + Isca + Iatt. Here, I0 is the energy
Isca) = I0(1ffi  eax), where a
of incident wave. Then, Iatt = I0  (Irefp+ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
is the attenuation constant and a ¼ 2p2 f 2 le0 e00 . It is clearly that
at a fixed frequency the higher imaginary part of permittivity e00
and permeability l, the more is Iatt. Since the e00 and l of cement
are very low, Iatt is small. But if some conducting or magnetic fill-
ings are introduced into cement wall, the absorption attenuation
would be enhanced a lot.
Most of effective medium theories (Maxwell Garnett, Brugg-
eman, Looyenga, etc.) consider inhomogeneities that are much
smaller than the wavelength [16]. However, when radius of the
particle is big (P 102 lm), scattering of the particle will play an
important role in wave attenuation [17]. Because of the large size
of the hollow sphere (the average diameter is about 2.5 mm), the
scattering attenuation should not be neglected. When electromag-
netic wave enters into the absorber along x-axis direction, the
interface between absorber and air is defined as x = 0, the energy
of scattering wave at x point Isca(x) can be expressed as follows
[18]:
!
4
k ðje  1j2 þ jl  1j2 Þ
Isca ðxÞ ¼ I0 expðnrsc  xÞ ¼ I0 exp n x
6p
ð2Þ
where I0 is the energy of incident electromagnetic wave, k ¼
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2pf e0 l0 el is wave number in the medium, rsc is the scattering
cross section, and n is the particles number in a unit volume of
the composites. From this, the scattering attenuation is closely re-
lated to the dielectric constant, the permeability and the filling ratio
of porous beads. Therefore, the more energy of electromagnetic
wave is attenuated with the introducing of absorbents in cement
wall and the increase in bead content.
Fig. 2 shows the phenomenon of multiple scattering and refrac-
tion in the composites. The interactions of incident wave and hol-
low spheres are complicated. In the whole, the wave loss in the
composites consists of the scattering loss and the absorption loss.
The scattering contains anisotropic scattering in single hollow
sphere and multiple scattering among hollow spheres, between
which the latter is of great importance for wave attenuation
[18,19]. The anisotropic scattering contributes to the increase of
multiple scattering, meanwhile the multiple scattering increases
the attenuation times in single hollow sphere. Thus the increase
in the concentration of porous beads in a certain range can enhance
the scattering loss by enhancing the attenuation probabilities.
Fig. 2. Sketch of the phenomenon of multiple scattering and refraction in
composites.
 L. Baoyi et al. / Materials and Design 32 (2011) 3017–3020
However, the further increase works against the wave attenuation
due to the weak absorption effectiveness of single hollow sphere
caused by the thinning of cement wall.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Influence of the filling ratio of porous beads
Fig. 3 shows a typical relationship between the reflection losses
and the filling ratio of porous beads; the fillings in (a) and (b) are
perlite and EPS, respectively. In general, the reflection losses of dif-
ferent compositions give very similar profile in the curves. Three or
four obviously absorption peaks are seen in each curve, whose val-
ues decrease and the corresponding frequencies shift toward lower
regions as the increasing in the filling ratio of porous beads. As ana-
lyzed, the filling of porous beads can improve the impedance char-
acteristics of cement composites. In other words, the impedance of
cement composite is closer to the impedance of air, resulting in the
decrease of peak values. The shift of matching frequency is possibly
due to the inverse relationship between the matching thickness dm
pffiffiffiffiffiffi
and frequency fm, which is expressed as dm ¼ c=4f m el [20]. The
propagation length of incident wave in the absorber increases by
the multiple scattering and refraction, and it equates the increase
of absorber thickness. So the matching frequency shifts toward
lower regions finally, although the decrease of l and e obstructs
this change.
4.2. Influence of the geometries of porous beads
Fig. 4 shows the reflection losses of composites employing
porous beads with different geometries. EPS, schist and perlite
are spherical, lamellar and random-shaped, respectively, with an
Fig. 3. Influence of the filling ratio of porous beads on reflection losses; the fillings
in (a) and (b) are perlite and EPS with an average diameter of 2 mm, respectively.
3019
Fig. 4. The reflection losses of composites employing porous beads with different
geometries; EPS, schist and perlite are spherical, lamellar and random-shaped,
respectively. The average diameters of filling beads are 2 mm.
average radius of 2 mm when they are equated to spheres. It can
be seen that EPS improves the absorption properties most,
followed by schist and perlite. The possible reason is discussed as
follows. The beads with asymmetric geometries make the propaga-
tion and absorption of incident wave much more complex [15]. On
the one hand, the phase interference between the incident wave
and scattered wave also contributes to the electromagnetic atten-
uation [12]. When the geometries of porous beads are uniform and
symmetrical, such interference losses are enhanced by the higher
probability of interference. On the other hand, additional pores
are introduced into cement matrix as the filling of porous beads,
whose content increases when the beads are spherical and smooth.
The pores can further improve the impedance matching character-
istics and leads to the lower reflection losses sequentially. So from
this we can conclude that the symmetric geometries of porous
beads are beneficial to wave absorption.
4.3. Influence of the conformation of cement matrix
Fig. 5 shows the variation of reflection losses versus the concen-
tration of carbon black (CB) in cement composites. As discussed in
Section 3.2, the conducting or magnetic fillings can enhance the
absorption attenuation of refracted wave and scattering attenua-
tion of scattered wave, thus the absorption properties can be im-
proved by filling CB. When the specimen is filled with 50 vol.%
EPS and 2 vol.% CB, the effective absorption bandwidth (less than
10 dB) reached 10.6 GHz and the lowest reflection loss of
22 dB was obtained at 5.6 GHz when the specimen was filled
Fig. 5. The variation of reflection losses versus the concentration of carbon black
(CB) in cement composites; the average diameters of EPS beads are 3 mm.
3020 L. Baoyi et al. / Materials and Design 32 (2011) 3017–3020
with 50 vol.% expanded polystyrene. However, it has a negative ef-
fect when the concentration of CB is too high. The skin depth D of
incident wave decreases as the increases in permittivity and per-
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
meability of cement wall, according to D ¼ 2=-2 ll0 e0 e00 [21].
When the concentration of CB is too high, the skin depth will be
less than the thickness of cement wall. Then the incident wave
could not transmit into the porous beads, resulting in the poor
absorption properties.
5. Conclusion
The electromagnetic absorption properties of cement-based
composites have been greatly improved by introducing porous
beads. The propagation and attenuation of the incident wave are
complex, and the scattering and multi-scattering play an impor-
tant role in wave attenuation. The reflection losses decrease obvi-
ously as the increase in the filling ratio of porous beads. The
symmetric geometries of porous beads are beneficial to wave
absorption. The conformation of cement matrix influences the
absorbing properties greatly, and there is an optimal content for
the conducting or magnetic filling. The lowest reflection loss of
22 dB was obtained at 5.6 GHz when the specimen was filled
with 50 vol.% expanded polystyrene, and the effective absorption
bandwidth (less than 10 dB) reached 10.6 GHz when the speci-
men was filled with 50 vol.% expanded polystyrene and 2 vol.% car-
bon black.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the support from The National Natu-
ral Science Foundation of China (No. 51007005), The Research Fund
for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (No.
20090041120038), The Aero Science Foundation of China (No.
20095463008), The Research Fund for the Advanced Research of
the Weapon Equipment of China (No: 2009317).
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