Attenuation Measurement of Ceramic Blocks Wall Using X-Band Waves

Nowadays, many companies depend on good communication between their technologies and Wi-Fi signal, which are part of the X-waves frequencies. Communication may suffer interference due to wave propagation’s difficulty, mainly depending on the number of walls and where the building is located. Therefore, buildings should be adapted to avoid this interference in order to minimize signal losses. Interference in wave propagation depends not only on walls but also on their structure. The studies of building construction and wave propagation may be complementary since the structure and organization may negatively affect the signal strength. This work analyzes X-waves’ attenuation (from 8GHz up to 12 GHz) in ceramic walls to evaluate their effects on wave propagation. This work differs from Literature not only by the material used, considering that there are many jobs involving concrete blocks, but also by calculating the wave signal focusing on a loss function in the analyzed object, enabling anomalous behavior analysis. This propagation behavior allows evaluating the most valuable equipment in a house (wireless device, TV). Finally, ceramic blocks were studied because they have a low cost, they are lightweight, easy to handle, and have a high frequency of use. The tests were performed in an 80cm x 80cm wall. The x-waves were produced by two horn antennas (transmitter and receiver) located at 70 cm of the wall on opposite sides and directions. We found an enhancement of attenuation in the x-waves frequency band with a significant drop at 11GHz. The signal drop mainly occurs due to the material characteristics, a.k.a stop band. This drop is caused by the electromagnetic band structure produced by the difference between the dielectric constant of the ceramic blocks and their periodically repeated voids called Electromagnetic Band Gap structure.