International audiencen this article, we present a very simple toolkit for permittivity and permeability measurement in the microwave region in real time. This kit contains a coaxial cell and a dedicated software compatible with any Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) for the reconstruction of permittivity and permeability data. The customizing design of the coaxial cell depends on the applications and material forms. The dedicated software for overall cells reconstructs directly in real time the permittivity and the permeability from the S-parameters measured. The Nicolson & Ross-Weir algorithm is using after a de-embedding process done by modeling our cell with an identity card (IC). The novelty of our method is that, after calibration process of the VNA to remove the cable effect, the measurement of the permittivity and permeability were done directly after only one measurement in real time. To validate the accuracy of this new measurement process for new applications, we reconstruct the permittivity of two material forms (dielectric or/and magnetic solids, semisolid). This new toolkit is called EpsiMu (www.epsimu.fr)
Abstract-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 ε r versus the volumetric water content θ and the Complex Refractive Index model (CRIM) between 600 MHz and 1 GHz. 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.
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