Functionalization of Fibre-Reinforced Thermoplastics for EMV-Shielding Applications

With an increasing demand for a higher fuel efficiency of different means of transportation, the demand for lightweight construction materials are rising as well. Usually, therefore metallic components are replaced by components consisting of a fibre-reinfoced plastic component. By doing so, the components lose their EMV-shielding properties, which are required for many applications such as housings for electrical components. The state of art is the application of electrically conductive foils or meshes, often by a manual process, which is adding unneccessary weight and is increasing the production- and process-time. In this publication, the application and parameter influence of thermally sprayed, elctrically conductive coatings for EMV-shielding applications is discussed. Laser-ablation is used as a novel surface preparation - the influence of laser-parameters is discussed accordingly. As a conclusion coating properties such as adhesion strength, EMV-shield strength as well as electrical properties are provided. The coatings are being applied by the wire-arc as well as the APS process with copper feedstock (for APS) and Copper and Zinc (for the Wire-Arc-Process) respectively.