Design of a large-scale vertical open-structure cylindrical shield employing magnetic shaking

The shield developed consists of four concentric magnetic shells positioned on the outer surfaces of paper pipes of ∼2.7 m length, ∼1 cm thickness, and with outer diameters of 67, 72, 82.2, and 97.4 cm, respectively. The first (innermost) shell is a Permalloy shell of 2.1 mm thickness and 1.8 m length. The second, third, and fourth shells are made of ∼50 mm wide, ∼22 μm thick Metglas 2705M amorphous ribbons. The second shell, which is a 2.2 m long helical structure, consists of 48 layers of Metglas ribbon divided into four equal sections by ∼1 cm thick flexible Styrofoam sheets. The third shell, 2.43 m in length, and fourth shell, 2.7 m in length, consist of 26 and 30 layers, respectively. A thin polyethylene film is tightly wound on each section of the second shell as well as on the third and fourth shells. It increases the friction between the Metglas ribbons and prevents them from sliding down; there is no foreign material in between the layers of the ribbon. All shells are enclosed by toroidal coils which are used to demagnetize the Permalloy shell and to apply magnetic shaking to the amorphous magnetic shells. The gross weight of the shield is ∼400 kg including ∼65 kg of Permalloy and ∼110 kg of Metglas. An ∼105 transverse shielding factor and a relatively large ∼380 axial shielding factor, despite the effect of the openings, are achieved for a 10 μT external field in the extremely low frequency region. The measured shaking leakage and magnetic noise field strengths at the shield’s center are less than 1 nT. As these low field strengths, it is possible to operate highly sensitive SQUID magnetometers for biomagnetic measurements.