Epsimu, a Tool for Dielectric Properties Measurement of Porous Media: Application in Wet Granular Materials Characterization

The principal aim of this article is the presentation of EpsiMu, a tool for dielectric properties measurement. This general tool can be used to characterize all types of materials, but in this article we apply it to porous or granular materials. The tool consists of a coaxial cell and dedicated software that allow us to reconstruct the permittivity in almost real-time by a de-embedding process. Dielectric permittivity of soils sample was measured using this microwave tool. So, we can then determine the relationship between the dielectric properties and volumetric water content θ of Fontainebleau sand (center of France) and Dune of Pilat sand (Arcachon Bay area, France). The clay effect on Fontainebleau sand is also studied. We discuss the usefulness of several models that link the permittivity to volumetric water content of soil. It is shown that the soil permittivity model is not directly applicable to Fontainebleau sand and Dune of Pilat sand. We find a good match between our results representing the relative permittivity εr versus the volumetric water content θ and the Complex Refractive Index model (CRIM) between 600 MHz and 1GHz. Alternative regression formulae are proposed. The implication of the determination of volumetric water content, θ, is discussed. A linear relation between the dielectric loss tangent and volumetric water content θ of soils is established. Received 22 November 2010, Accepted 21 March 2011, Scheduled 30 March 2011 Corresponding author: Pierre Sabouroux ([email protected]). 192 Sabouroux and Ba