An alternative approach to design conductive hybrid cover yarns for efficient electromagnetic shielding fabrics

E-Textiles have gained enormous attention due to their specific characteristics in various non-conventional applications such as electromagnetic shielding materials. With the advent of various high frequency-driven devices, the need to restrict the non-ionizing radiations from their undesired effects became imperative. Due to the ease of production, better electrical conductivity and durability, the conductive hybrid cover yarns with continuous metallic filaments have earned its place as the most convenient form of yarns to develop E-textiles. However, controlling the amount of conducting material in yarns poses a challenge as the increase in size of the metallic filaments are associated with reduced electromagnetic shielding effectiveness due to increased stiffness of yarns, which resists in proper interlacement and hence causes openness in fabrics. The proposed design of conductive hybrid cover yarns is proven to have better tensile properties and modulus, therefore this design is more suitable to produced fabrics with higher cover factors. The amount of conducting material in the proposed design increased significantly without changing the size of the continuous filaments. Moreover, 99.9% shielding effectiveness is achieved with this increased metal content in fabrics in S-band and partly C-band microwave frequencies.