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Re: [TowerTalk] Conductivity of a reinforced concrete rooftop

To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Conductivity of a reinforced concrete rooftop
From: Jim Lux <jimlux@earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2013 06:41:44 -0700
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
On 4/4/13 4:25 AM, David Robbins wrote:
better than dirt, worse than solid metal.


Apr 4, 2013 12:27:03 AM, hk1kxa@hotmail.com wrote:

Any hint on the values of conductivity and relative dielectric constant of a 
reinforced concrete rooftop?

David
HK1A
EC5KXA
AE5XQ



At what frequency? I have a lot of data on concrete and other building materials.

At 1 GHz, a typical number is epsilon =6, sigma = 20-40 mS/m
Brick is around 4-5, 17.5 mS/m

That is for the concrete, without rebar.

If you add rebar, it becomes a very good conductor at frequencies where the wavelength is > spacing between the bars. A decent approximation would be to take the conductivity of iron and the conductivity of concrete, and combine them with the relative cross sectional area.

Take a slab that is 4" thick with 1/2" bars on 6" centers. For every foot, the total cross sectional area is 48 square inches. There's two bars in that foot with cross sectional area 0.39 square inches (or about 1%).

So you would approximate conductivity as 0.99*20E-3 + 0.01*1E7

I would just ignore the concrete.. the conductivity is 1E5 S/m..


(this is why a Ufer ground works so well..it doesn't much metal in the concrete to make it a "really good" conductor compared to soil)

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