THE MEASUREMENT OF THE DIELECTRIC CONSTANT OF UNDERGROUND CLAY PIPES

Abstract

Many of the Underground utilities in the United States are in need of rehabilitation. It is then necessary to find ways to improve and measure intrastructural characteristics. An advanced ultra-wideband (UWB) based radar was developed at Louisiana Tech University to assess the intrastructure of underground pipes. A significant contribution in the process of designing such an ultra-wideband (UWB) based radar system came from a two- and three-dimensional numerical modeling of the propagation of electromagnetic pulses inside and outside buried non-metallic pipes using the finite difference time domain (FDTD) technique. The electrical properties of the materials involved in exhibit show a significant variation as a result of the moisture content, mineral content, bulk density, temperature and frequency of the electromagnetic signal propagating through it. In this paper, the dielectric constant of clay pipe are measured over a microwave frequency range from 1 Ghz to 18 Ghz including the effects of moisture and chloride content. The change in the dielectric constant of clay pipe becomes significant as the moisture level increases. A high performance software package called MUEPSLNTM was used for the calculations.

Keywords

• dielectric constant
• underground clay pipe
• and finite difference time domain technique