buildingMaterialPermittivity

Permittivity and conductivity of building materials

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Syntax

[epsilon,sigma,complexepsilon] = buildingMaterialPermittivity(material,fc)

Description

example

[epsilon,sigma,complexepsilon] = buildingMaterialPermittivity(material,fc) calculates the relative permittivity, conductivity, and complex relative permittivity for the specified material at the specified frequency. The methods and equations modeled in the buildingMaterialPermittivity function are presented in Recommendation ITU-R P.2040 [1].

Examples

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Open Live Script

Calculate relative permittivity and conductivity at 9 GHz for various building materials as defined by textual classifications in ITU-R P.2040, Table 3.

material = ["vacuum";"concrete";"brick";"plasterboard";"wood"; ...
    "glass";"ceiling-board";"chipboard";"floorboard";"metal"];
fc = repmat(9e9,size(material)); % Frequency in Hz
[permittivity,conductivity] = ...
    arrayfun(@(x,y)buildingMaterialPermittivity(x,y),material,fc);

Display the results in a table.

varNames = ["Material";"Permittivity";"Conductivity"];
table(material,permittivity,conductivity,'VariableNames',varNames)
ans=10×3 table
       Material        Permittivity    Conductivity
    _______________    ____________    ____________

    "vacuum"                  1                 0  
    "concrete"             5.31           0.19305  
    "brick"                3.75             0.038  
    "plasterboard"         2.94          0.054914  
    "wood"                 1.99          0.049528  
    "glass"                6.27          0.059075  
    "ceiling-board"         1.5         0.0064437  
    "chipboard"            2.58           0.12044  
    "floorboard"           3.66          0.085726  
    "metal"                   1             1e+07
Open Live Script

Calculate the relative permittivity and conductivity for concrete at frequencies specified.

fc = ((1:1:10)*10e9); % Frequency in Hz
[permittivity,conductivity] = ...
    arrayfun(@(y)buildingMaterialPermittivity("concrete",y),fc);

Plot the relative permittivity and conductivity of concrete across the range of frequencies.

figure
yyaxis left
plot(fc,permittivity)
ylabel('Relative Permittivity')
yyaxis right
plot(fc,conductivity)
ylabel('Conductivity (S/m)')
xlabel('Frequency (Hz)')
title('Permittivity and Conductivity of Concrete')

Input Arguments

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Building material, specified as vector of strings including one or more of these options:

"vacuum""glass""very-dry-ground"
"concrete""ceiling-board""medium-dry-ground"
"brick""floorboard""wet-ground"
"plasterboard""chipboard" 
"wood""metal" 

Example: ["vacuum" "brick"]

Data Types: char | string

Carrier frequency in Hz, specified as a positive scalar.

Note

fc must be in the range [1e6, 10e6] when the material is "very-dry-ground", "medium-dry-ground" or "wet-ground".

Data Types: double

Output Arguments

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Relative permittivity of the building material, returned as a nonnegative scalar or row vector. The output dimension of epsilon matches that of the input argument material. For more information about the computation for the relative permittivity, see ITU Building Materials.

Conductivity, in Siemens/m, of the building material, returned as a nonnegative scalar or row vector. The output dimension of sigma matches that of the input argument material. For more information about the computation for the conductivity, see ITU Building Materials.

Complex relative permittivity of the building material, returned as a complex scalar or row vector of complex values.

The output dimension of complexepsilon matches that of the input argument material. For more information about the computation for the complex relative permittivity, see ITU Building Materials.

More About

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ITU Building Materials

Section 3 of ITU-R P.2040-1 [1] presents methods, equations, and values used to calculate real relative permittivity, conductivity, and complex relative permittivity at carrier frequencies up to 100 GHz for common building materials.

The buildingMaterialPermittivity function uses equations from ITU-R P.2040-1 to compute these values.

  • The real part of the relative permittivity is calculated as

    epsilon = afb.

    The computation of epsilon is based on equation (58). f is the frequency in GHz. Values for a and b are specified in Table 3 from ITU-R P.2040-1.

  • The conductivity in Siemens/m is calculated as

    sigma = cfd.

    The computation of sigma is based on equation (59). f is the frequency in GHz. Values for c and d are specified in Table 3 from ITU-R P.2040-1.

  • The complex permittivity is calculated as

    complexepsilon = epsilon – 1i sigma / (2πfcε0).

    The computation of complexepsilon is based on Equations (59) and (9b). f is the frequency in GHz. c is the velocity of light in free space. ε0 = 8.854187817e-12 Farads/m, where ε0 is the electric constant for the permittivity of free space.

For cases where the value of b or d is zero, the corresponding value of epsilon or sigma is a or c, respectively and independent of frequency.

The contents of Table 3 from ITU-R P.2040-1 are repeated in this table. The values a, b, c, and d are used to calculate relative permittivity and conductivity. Except as noted for the three ground types, the frequency ranges given in the table are not hard limits but are indicative of the measurements used to derive the models. The buildingMaterialPermittivity function interpolates or extrapolates relative permittivity and conductivity values for frequencies that fall outside of the noted limits. To compute relative permittivity and conductivity for different types of ground as a function carrier frequencies up to 1000 GHz, see the earthSurfacePermittivity function.

Material ClassReal Part of Relative PermittivityConductivity (S/m)Frequency Range (GHz)
abcd

Vacuum (~ air)

1

0

0

0

[0.001, 100]

Concrete

5.31

0

0.0326

0.8095

[1, 100]

Brick

3.75

0

0.038

0

[1, 10]

Plasterboard

2.94

0

0.0116

0.7076

[1, 100]

Wood

1.99

0

0.0047

1.0718

[0.001, 100]

Glass

6.27

0

0.0043

1.1925

[0.1, 100]

Ceiling board

1.50

0

0.0005

1.1634

[1, 100]

Chipboard

2.58

0

0.0217

0.78

[1, 100]

Floorboard

3.66

0

0.0044

1.3515

[50, 100]

Metal

1

0

107

0

[1, 100]

Very dry ground

3

0

0.00015

2.52

[1, 10] only(a)

Medium dry ground

15

– 0.1

0.035

1.63

[1, 10] only(a)

Wet ground

30

– 0.4

0.15

1.30

[1, 10] only(a)

Note (a): For the three ground types (very dry, medium dry, and wet), the noted frequency limits cannot be exceeded.

References

[1] ITU-R P.2040-1. "Effects of Building Materials and Structures on Radiowave Propagation Above 100MHz." International Telecommunications Union - Radiocommunications Sector (ITU-R). July 2015.

See Also

Functions

Objects

Introduced in R2020a

Antenna Toolbox Documentation

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