Effect of Plastering Mesh on Radio Signals: Modelling and Practical Measurements

The improvement of the energy efficiency of a building is often one of the reasons for the renovation of building facades. During such renovations, the energy efficiency is usually improved by increasing the thickness of insulation layer. The increased insulation layer increases the overall thickness of the wall, and to compensate for that, a new thin façade material is often sought. As a result, plastering has gained more and more popularity recently. However, especially in the case of thick plastering, a plaster mesh is often used to fix a layer of material, and this paper investigates the effect of the mesh on radio signal attenuation. This study shows that the plastering mesh significantly increases the overall wall attenuation, especially at lower frequencies used by mobile networks. The attenuation caused by the mesh is frequency dependent and decreases with increasing frequency. The attenuation behavior is entirely determined by the mesh size of the mesh.acceptedVersionPeer reviewe

Impact of concrete moisture on radio propagation:Fundamentals and measurements of concrete samples

Since 1960’s concrete based wall panel systems have become more popular especially in multi-storey residential buildings. The main components of concrete are water, cement and aggregates and especially water-to-cement ratio has a significant influence on the pore structure of the concrete and therefore, on its electrical properties. This paper presents a study where the effect of moisture on the RF attenuation of the outermost concrete sandwich element is examined based on material samples. The frequency range used in the measurements was 7 GHz to 13 GHz, but the results are expandable for other frequencies based on the stable permittivity value. In particular, at higher frequencies, the attenuation of concrete layer increases rapidly and already at lower frequencies of 5th Generation (5G) networks, the wetting of the outermost layer of the concrete element can cause an 6-12 dB additional signal attenuation.acceptedVersionPeer reviewe