What has only been available for research and scientific work for many years can now be used in industry for the measurement of moisture. The moisture measuring TRIME®-TDR technique patented by IMKO Micromodultechnik GmbH offers considerable advantages, which have not been possible in this form with measuring techniques up to now. With SONO-probes IMKO is presenting a new generation of moisture probes. In particular, they have been developed for the construction industry and for the manufacture of food stuffs, however they can be applied in further important industries. Their secret: The application of the most modern TRIME® radar technology (Time-Domain-Reflectometry). Via an electromagnetic TDR-impulse with a frequency of 1 GHz SONO-probes measure the water content precisely until the material has become saturated, and they continue to measure beyond this stage. In addition, valuable observations can be made regarding the mineral content or the consistency of the material measured. An extremely wide variety of devices can be equipped with SONO-probes and they can be connected to all control systems without any problem.
In order to determine the moisture of a material, TRIME® measures the characteristic value of the material, the “dielectric constant (DC)“, with high frequency electromagnetic waves.
The DC is composed of a real and an imaginary fraction. There is no electric measuring technique, which can distinguish either of these two fractions of the DC, without a considerable amount of effort and so a mixture of the real and imaginary fractions is always measured.
However, it is only the real fraction, which constitutes the measurement for the water content. The imaginary fraction constitutes the measurement for the dielectric losses, e.g. through electric conductivity, temperature, etc. The imaginary fraction is thus a disturbing factor in the measurement of water content and delivers the well-known deviations in the measurements under temperature fluctuations and a high conductivity of the measured objects during capacitive and microwave measuring techniques.
Amongst all dielectric measuring techniques the TRIME®-TDR technology offers optimal physical conditions for the precise measurement of moisture, … and what is more with objects to be measured at temperatures of up to 150°C.