Moisture content estimation of wet sand from free-space microwave techniques

Dielectric models are used with permittivity measurements of material for translation from permittivity to moisture content. A dielectric model for pure sand was developed based on fundamental physical properties such as the permittivity and geometry of the host material particles, and the frequency dependent processes that determine the permittivity of water. The measurement of sand using the short-circuited reflection method is discussed as is the processing of the measured data to extract permittivity values. Measured data in the 1-6 GHz frequency range for sand with a volumetric moisture content of 6.35 and 11.47% and thickness of 100 and 200mm is compared with the dielectric model.