The Electromagnetic Immunity of a Vehicle with Non-Metallic Body Panels

Use of non-metallic materials is increasing, with the need to produce lighter, greener and more economical vehicles. This, compounded by the ever-escalating electronic content of vehicles for telematic and safety critical systems, increases the importance of safety and electromagnetic immunity. This paper presents work to quantify the changes in the electromagnetic immunity of a vehicle resulting from the use of non-metallic body panels.

Use of statistics has demonstrated that increases (in current induced onto the vehicle harness) up to 10dB can be observed, resulting from the use of non-metallic body panels. However these are no more significant than variations presently found between identical production vehicles.