Measurement Techniques for Electromagnetic Shielding Behavior of Braided-Shield Power Cables: An Overview and Comparative Study

Abstract

More and more EMC tests have shown that the radiated emission problems of the equipment under test mainly concentrate on the intercon-nected power cables and cable connectors. Measurement of shielding performance is a prerequisite for quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the frequency-dependent characteristic of braided-shield power cables and cable connectors. Due to the asymmetric geometric structures of these cable assemblies, compared with the coaxial and symmetrical communication cables, the commonly used transfer impedance testing methods may not be suitable. In view of this, several improved simple and effective measurement methods, including transfer impedance and shield reduction factor testing methods, were proposed in recent years. These methods, based on the equivalent circuit model of the characteristic parameters, provide good repeatability for the measurement of shielding performance. This paper presents an overview analysis of various measurement techniques for shielding performance of power cables and cable connectors, highlights some of its equivalence principle in measurement setups, and showcases a brief comparison between transfer impedance and shield reduction factor.