Resolving ambiguity in broadband waveguide permittivity measurements on moist materials

Author

Ball, James A R ; Horsfield, Brendan

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Southern Queensland Univ., Toowoomba, Qld., Australia

Volume

47

Issue

2

fYear

1998

fDate

4/1/1998 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

390

Lastpage

392

Abstract

The dielectric properties of moist materials depend strongly on free water content. Moisture content may be conveniently sensed using microwaves, provided that calibration data is available. One common method utilizes network analyzer transmission measurements on waveguide cells filled with samples of known water content. Since this technique yields multiple solutions for the complex permittivity, a simple procedure has been developed to identify the correct solution. This has proved to be highly reliable and lends itself to measurement automation

Keywords

S-parameters; calibration; microwave measurement; moisture measurement; permittivity measurement; ambiguity resolution; broadband waveguide permittivity measurement; dielectric properties; free water content; microwave measurement; moist materials; scattering parameters; swelling clay soils; swept frequency measurements; transcendental equation; vector NWA; waveguide transmission line cells; Calibration; Dielectric materials; Dielectric measurements; Electromagnetic waveguides; Microwave measurements; Microwave theory and techniques; Moisture measurement; Permittivity measurement; Scattering parameters; Water;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Instrumentation and Measurement, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9456

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/19.744179

Filename

744179