Publications Details

Publications / Conference Paper

Estimating effective contact resistance of resonant cavity joints using near-field scanning

Wallace, Jon W.; Timmins, Ian T.

The possibility of estimating the effective resistance at contact points along a seam in a cylindrical vessel is investigated. The vessel is formed from two top-hat structures bolted together at a flange. Aluminum shims at the bolt locations ensure a nearly constant 5-mil gap or slot between the flanges. Cavity modes are excited with a short monopole antenna inside the structure, and external near fields 5 mm away from the slot are probed around the vessel circumference. Comparison of CST and FDTD simulations with measurements reveals that the shape of the field-vs-angle curve is strongly dependent on the contact resistance, indicating that meaningful estimates can be extracted.