Simulation of Microwave Non Destructive Testing environment (MNDT) in determining the dielectric constant of concrete using waveguide port approximation at 8–12GHz (X-band)

This paper reports on a method to determine the dielectric constant of a concrete block using a Microwave Non Destructive Testing (MNDT) at X-band frequency through simulations. Besides the dielectric constant, the behaviour of wave propagating through a Gaussian Optic Lens antenna and the concrete blocks were also analysed. An MNDT environment was modelled using a waveguide port approximation technique using CST Microwave Studio. Transient solver was chosen in order to obtain the broadband frequency behaviour of the simulated device from only one calculation run. Results from simulated 10 concrete blocks were observed and analysed. From the simulation, the average value of dielectric constant is 2.5874 and the average percentage error between simulation and real measurement is 0.24754%.