2AC06

MEASUREMENT OF THE ELECTROMAGNETIC CONSTANTS OF

CONCRETE MATERIALS BY TIME-DOMAIN REFLECTOMETRY
XU Qiwei SHI Lihua GAO Cheng
EMP Lab, Nanjing Engineering Institute, Nanjing, 210007
Email: emp.njei@publicl .ptt.js.cn
ABSTRACT A dielectric constant and electrical
conductivity measurement system based on time-domain
refelectometry(TDR) probes that can be embedded into
concrete structures have been designed. The calibration
data in distilled water has shown that the measuring
system can measure the dielectric constant and
conductivity accurately. By using the embedded probes in
concrete structures, changes of the electromagnetic
properties through the' curing stage of Portland concrete
specimens are measured and presented in this paper.
INTRODUCTION
Concrete is the most widely used material in buildings and
infrastructures. Besides its mechanical properties, its
electromagnetic(EM) properties are more and more
concerned by engineers in different fields. To evaluate and
analyze the EM properties, theEM constant such as the
dielectric constant, and the conductivity should be known
accurately.
There have been many researches on the measurement of
the complex permittivity in frequency-domain by network
analyzer and various test fixtures[l]-[4]. For example, K.
OLP et a/ designed a large dielectric measurement cell to
operate over a 1 MHz-3 GHz frequency range to measure
concrete EM properties. It was found that the EM
properties of concretes vary significantly over the
frequencies, and the water/cement/sand ratios and
chemical admixtures of concrete affected their EM
properties during the curing process [l]. R.H.Haddad and
1.L.Al-Qadi measured the dielectric properties of Portland
cement concrete (PCC) in microwave frequency range of
0.1 to 1 GHz. It is found that the dielectric properties of
PCC decreased over the curing time and the aggregate
type significantly affected dielectric properties while the
cement type did not have much effects on them[2]. In
order to compare the time-domain and frequency-domain
results, Richard et a1 did frequency analysis of TDR and
got a frequency dependent dielectric constant for wet soil
from time-domain measurement[4]. Presently, almost all
the test data for concretes are measured in
frequency-domain, for time-domain analysis, an
equivalent parameter for pulse signals is necessary in
some applications. Besides this, it is also important to have
a test probe that can be applied to real structures for
on-site and long time monitoring. The aim of this research
is to design a time-domain reflectometry(TDR) probe that
can be emheddable to the concrete structure and monitor
the dielectric constant and electrical conductivity of the
tested material under different conditions.
THEORY OF TDR MEASUREMENT
TDR measurement uses the material to be tested as the
media of an electromagnetic transmission line. Electro-
magnetic properties of the material are determined by
injecting a step pulse to the transmission line and
measuring the reflection of the pulse. Calculation of the
material's dielectric constant is based on the relationship
of it with wave velocity. By measuring the arriving time of
the reflected input signal by the end of the probe, wave
velocity in the transmission line can be calculated[5]. The
velocity v of an electromagnetic wave along a
transmission line of length L is a function of the relative
0-7803-7277-8/02/$10.00 02002 IEEE.
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and passed it to computer for further analysis. Averaging
function of the oscilloscope was used to remove the
measurement noise as much as possible.
dielectric constant E, according to
where c is the velocity of electromagnetic waves in
vacuum(3 X 108mls), and f is the time used for the pulse to
traverse the length of the transmission line (back and
forth).
The electrical conductivity(EC) of the media between the
transmission lines is calculated from the reflection
coefficient p :
I I
m 10 a) M I rn 111
time/ns
Fig.1: A typical TDR waveformin concrete
where E, is the dielectric constant of free space (8.9X
10iZF/m), Zu is the output impedance of TDR equipment
(generally 50 Q) ; Z, is the characteristic probe impedance,
which can be derived by calibration of the TDR probe in a
material with hown E, and measurement of the input
$ I : [ , ,,
ZO.!
.-
3
~
I\*LL...LYL\. ""1LL.S'.
~ 1, -1 _.- , . -
0 1 1 0 1 1 ) D 2 3 ? 4
Time/ns
Fig.2: A TDR waveformin distilled water
where Vo is the incident pulse voltage, and Vi is the local
reflection the
collected waveform of the concrete.
Fig.1 gives a typical waveform measured by TDR probes.
Five TDR in the form of three-rod transmission
lines of different sizes were made for embedding into
regular concrete specimen. Their intrinsic impedances are
measured by calibration in distilled water, Fig.2 is a
typical response of these probes in distilled water, from
which the input and reflection voltage can be measured
and Zo can be calculated by Eq.(3). The calibration result
is given in Tah.1. Compared with the real dielectric
both Of them are Obtained
V , and Vi are shown on the plot. Fromthe TDR waveform,
the reflection coefficient p can also be calculated.
MEASUREMENT RESULTS
3.1 Calibration of the TDR probes
A TDR test system that consists of the pulse generator,
constant of distilled water( E, =SO), the measured value is
digital storage oscilloscope and TDR probes was setup for
the measurement. In the test, the pulse generator launched
a square pulse with rising time less than Ins to the TDR
probe. The oscilloscope recorded the reflected waveform
with good accuracy. The measured values of conductivity
are also close to standard value of pure water(2 X IO4
S/m).
23 1
waterlcement ratio in preparing thespecimens is near 0.43.
Size (cm)
WWIH
Specimen
\/ : : e
Concretestructure
Mixes (kg)
Cement 1 FA' I CA**
Fig.3:,Three-rod TDR probein concrete structure
Tab. 1 : Dimension and calibration dataof the pmbes
I-WBr27.5- 269.565 80.021 1.843
-W&27.5- 314.897 80.021 2.138
5-WBr29-L 320.358 77.319
I I
3-WBr29-LI 322.737 I 78.319 I 1.665
3-W&29-LI 312.701 I 78.319 I 1.872
I I
*W-theintervals between two rods of pmbe(half width,
lcm, 3cmand 5cm.); Gthe length of therods of probe
Tab.2: Size and content ofthree specimens
I I
30130130
N0.3
* FA-tineaggregate(sand)
**CA-coarseaggregate(1imestone)
3.2 Preparation of the concrete specimen
Three concrete specimens(No. 1-No.3) were cast in wood
molds with TDR probes embedded in .them. Fig.3 is a
setup of the probe in the specimen. Specimen No.1 and
No.2 is pure concrete with only cement and sand.
Specimen No.3 is with regular content. Proportions and
size of the three specimens are listed in Tab.2. The
. . .. . . . . . . . . .
Fig.4 Changeofrelative dielectric constant with time
.. . . . .
. Pure concrete specimen ...
-. ... Concrete with aggregates specimen
- A . 1 A
90 I5 20 25 m U
I
curing time(days)
Fi g5 Changeof conductivity withtime
Change of EM constant with curing time and 3.3
aggregates
Time-domain reflections of all the five probes were
recorded periodically during the 35th days after pouring.
Dielectric constant and conductivity were calculated from
the measured waveforms. Changes of the dielectric
constant and conductivity with time are shown in Fig.4
and Fig5. In the first 2 days, &,and EC decrease rapidly.
After 7 days, their changes become very slow. These
changes show good consistency with the chemical change
and water content in the hardening period of concrete.
The difference of pure concrete and regular concrete with
aggregates was also observed. Presence of the aggregates
slightly increases the dielectric constant and decreases the
conductivity. The final data of specimen show dielectric
constant of pure concrete is about 5.6 at 5OC and the
232
electrical conductivity is 0.025S/m. For the concrete with
aggregates, the relative dielectric constant is ahout 6.5 and
electrical conductivity is O.O22S/m.
3.4 Comparison with frequency-domain data
Test results of the TDR prohe are compared with some
available published data. Compared with the test data
measured at frequency of 20MHz( E, =24.97 after curing
for 42 days) by a capacitor probe in a concrete slab with
the same content of our specimen[4], our result is much
lower( &,=8.2 in the 35th day). This is mainly due to the
decrease of dielectric constant with the increase of test
frequency, because the test signal in our experiment is a
step pulse with much more high frequency content. Fig.6
is the effect of curing time on dielectric properties for PCC
specimen measured by a coaxial transmission line at
55OMHz[2]. The specimen was mixed at waterkement
ratio of 0.45 with aggregates of limestone (density:
2416.0kg/m3) or quartzite(density: 2331.4kg/m3). The real
part of dielectric constant in this plot is the E, we
studied, and the imaginaly part is related to the
conductivity and test frequency.
CONCLUSIONS
TDR probes in the form of three-rod transmission lines
were embedded into concrete specimens to monitor the
change of dielectric constant and conductivity during the
curing process of concrete. With the increase of the curing
time, the electromagnetic properties of concrete shew
consistent change. Both dielectric constant and
conductivity decrease with the hardening of the concrete,
especially in the first few days of after pouring. Difference
in the EM property was also observed in concrete
specimens with and without coarse aggregates. By
comparing with the available frequency domain test data,
it is shown the TDR data is comparable with the CW test
data in frequency band of 100MHz-1GHz and is much
lower than that in low frequency hand such as 20MHz.
I...-2!!:sE!!L- Le-: qu;mri,r 1
Fig.6: Dielectric properties vs. curing timeat 550MHz[5]
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research is supported by the Chinese National
Science Foundation (No.59908014).
REFERENCES
1. K.OLP, G.Otto, W.C.Chew, J.F.Young, . Electro-
magnetic properties of mortars over a broad frequency
range and different curing times, Journal of
Materials Science 26,pp. 2978-2984,1991.
2. R.H.Haddad, I.L.Al-Qadi, Characterization of
Portland cement concrete using electromagnetic
waves over the microwave frequencies, Cement and
Concrete Research, 28( 1 O),pp. 1379-1 391,1998.
Brian K. Diefendefier, Development and Testing of a
Capacitor Probe to Detect Deterioration in Portland
Cement Concrete, MSc. dissertation, Virginia
Polytechnic Institute and State University,l998.
4. Richard Friel Dani Or, Frequency analysis of
time-domain reflectometry (TDR) with application to
dielectric spectroscopy of soil constituents,
Geophysics,64(3), pp.707-718, 1999.
The Soils Group at Utah State University. Chapter 9,
WinTDR 98 Manual. 1998. http:Nwww.psb.usu.edu
iwintdrlmanuaYwintdr98ichapter9,pdf.
3.
5.
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