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Concrete Moisture Content Measurement Using Interdigitated Near-Field

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IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 10, NO. 7, JULY 2010
Concrete Moisture Content Measurement Using
Interdigitated Near-Field Sensors
Md. Nazmul Alam, Student Member, IEEE, Rashed H. Bhuiyan, Student Member, IEEE,
Roger A. Dougal, Senior Member, IEEE, and Mohammod Ali, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—The efficacy of a meander and a circular interdig-
itated sensor in detecting and measuring the moisture present
in wet concrete samples is demonstrated. Analytical, simulation,
and measurement results of interelectrode capacitance for sam-
ples with different moisture contents show good agreement. As
moisture content increases from 0% to 6%, the interelectrode ca-
pacitance that predicts the moisture content increases by 126.4%
for the meander sensor and 187% for the circular sensor. Regres-
sion analysis of the measured data demonstrates that for moisture
content less than 6% the relationship between the measured
capacitance and the percent moisture content is predominantly
linear.
Index Terms—Concrete, interdigitated sensor, moisture sensor.
I. INTRODUCTION
N ORDER TO ensure public safety, routine monitoring,
I and inspection of the health of civil infrastructures such as
bridges, overpasses, and buildings is very important. According
to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), in 2005 about
26.2% bridges were structurally deficient in the U.S. [1]. The
main causes of bridge failure were floods and collisions [2]. For
rehabilitation and maintenance, field data are needed as man-
dated by the National Bridge Inspection Program. In most cases,
bridge health monitoring is done by using ground penetrating
radar (GPR) [3] which is time consuming and costly. Innova-
tive sensor technology can provide a cheap and a more reliable
solution. Wireless sensors can be used to detect the presence of
moisture and crack in concrete or the corrosion in the steel re-
inforcement bar, etc. For active wireless sensors, their batteries
can be charged by sending wireless power from outside without
damaging the structure [4].
Moisture detection in civil infrastructure has been investi-
gated by researchers in the past. Xing et al. [5] developed a
2.4-GHz integrated parallel-plate soil moisture sensor system.
The sensor detects the phase shift caused by the changes in the
dielectric constant of soil which is related to the soil moisture
content. This sensor needs a number of components, such
as a phase locked loop (PLL), voltage controlled oscillator
(VCO), phase shifter, phase detector, microcontroller, and
Manuscript received September 09, 2009; revised December 10, 2009;
accepted December 23, 2009. Date of current version May 21, 2010. This
work was supported in part by the U.S. Office of Naval Research under Grant
N00014-02-1-0623. The associate editor coordinating the review of this paper
and approving it for publication was Prof. Okyay Kaynak.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, University
of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208 USA (e-mail: alam2@cec.sc.edu;
bhuiyan@cec.sc.edu; dougal@cec.sc.edu; alimo@cec.sc.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSEN.2010.2040175
1530-437X/$26.00 © 2010 IEEE
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1243
power management circuitry on board to be fully functional.
In [6], Saxena and Tayal described a parallel-plate capacitor as
a moisture sensor. The sensor consists of a Wein bridge oscil-
lator, a capacitance bridge, a differential amplifier, a band-pass
filter, a rectifier circuit, and an analog meter. Ong et al. [7]
proposed a 24 MHz embedded LC resonant sensor for moisture
content measurement, which requires a large external loop and
an impedance analyzer.
To maintain the integrity of concrete structures and to allow
minimum disruption, an embedded sensor should occupy as
small space as possible. The sensor should also only have very
few and small components. To address these issues, we propose
a planar interdigitated sensor fabricated on a very thin substrate.
Because of its thin planar construction the interdigitated sensor
can be easily embedded in concrete for moisture content mea-
surement. Our proposed sensor occupies a very small space.
In recent years, interdigitated sensors have drawn the at-
tention of researchers due to their low cost and simplicity.
They have found application in humidity sensing [8], chemical
sensing [9], [10], gas detection [11], resin curing [12], etc.
In our research group Bhuiyan et al. [13] have designed and
developed interdigitated sensors which can detect insulation
faults in unshielded power cables. This was achieved by ap-
plying a low frequency signal and then measuring the resulting
interelectrode capacitance of the sensor. It was shown that
a half circular sensor was less sensitive to its position with
respect to the sample under test than a meander sensor.
In this paper, the efficacy of two interdigitated sensors in
moisture sensing in concrete samples is studied. First, the me-
ander sensor introduced in our earlier work [13] was used. Then,
a full circular interdigitated sensor with larger field penetration
depth was designed, built, and tested. Experimental measure-
ments were performed to determine the sensor interelectrode ca-
pacitance by varying the moisture content of concrete samples
with both types of sensors. Measurement results are compared
with results obtained from analytical equations and simulations
from Maxwell 3-D solver.
This paper is organized as follows. In Section II, the basic
interdigitated sensor geometry, operating principles and its ana-
lytical model are discussed. In Section III, the details of sensor
fabrication and the experimental setup and measurement proce-
dure are described. All results are presented and discussed in
Section IV followed by the conclusion in Section V.
II. SENSOR GEOMETRY, CIRCUIT, AND ANALYTICAL MODEL
An interdigitated sensor is a coplanar structure consisting
of multiple parallel fingers. The sensor can measure material
dielectric constant by applying fringing electric fields into the
1244
Fig. 1. Typical geometry of an interdigitated sensor.
Fig. 2. (a) Block diagram of sensor circuit and (b) its equivalent circuit.
material. The electrodes of the sensor must be in contact with
the material under test. Fig. 1 shows the geometry of an inter-
digitated sensor [13]. To learn more about the sensor structure
and its operation, the reader may review [12]. Three types of
electrodes are present, namely the driving electrode, the sensing
electrode, and the guard electrode. A sinusoidal voltage
applied to the driving electrode and the output voltage
measured from the sensing electrode. Guard electrodes and a
conducting backplane are used to shield the sensor from the in-
fluence of external fields [14]. Another important term is the
penetration depth of the field which is directly related to the
spatial wavelength, . The penetration depth is approximately
equal to 1/3 of [15].
A popular method to find the dielectric constant of a material
is the short-circuit current method, which is shown in Fig. 2.
A low-frequency voltage is applied to the driving electrode
while the sensing electrode is connected to a precision opamp
(AD708). The opamp acts as an inverting amplifier where a
known capacitor is used for feedback.
We used a simplified circuit model in Fig. 2(b) to calculate
the capacitance between the driving and the sensing electrodes.
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IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 10, NO. 7, JULY 2010
Fig. 3. Unit cell representation of interdigitated sensor.
The substrate has zero conductivity, so the current is due to the
capacitive effect only. Also, since the opamp is operating in the
inverting mode, it is obvious that
(1)
Fig. 3 shows a unit cell of an interdigitated sensor without the
conducting backplane. Using the conformal mapping method
Scapple [16] derived the total per unit capacitance for an inter-
digitated meander sensor as
(2)
where and are the elliptic integrals
of modulus and , respectively [16]. The
first part on the right-hand side of the equation resembles the
capacitance of the material under test and the substrate and the
second part resembles the capacitance of the trapped material in
between the interelectrode gap. In (2), it is assumed that there is
no conducting backplane. If a conducting backplane is present
and the substrate is very thin, then the field lines that penetrate
the substrate end at the backplane and not at the sensing elec-
trodes. So the substrate capacitance has no contribution to .
A more accurate expression for per unit capacitance is found in
[13]
is
is
(3)
where is the corrected per unit capacitance. is the cor-
rection factor. For the meander sensor, the correction factor is
(4)
where is a constant. For the typical meander sensor that was
used in our experiment the value of is 0.02. If the electrode
length is and the total number of unit cells is then the total
capacitance
(5)
ALAM et al.: CONCRETE MOISTURE CONTENT MEASUREMENT USING INTERDIGITATED NEAR-FIELD SENSORS 1245

Fig. 5. Ansoft Maxwell 3-D model of full circular sensor.

Concrete block samples were prepared using concrete mix.

The age of the samples was more than one year at the time of
the measurement. The dimensions of the samples were 15 cm
15 cm 2 cm and 15 cm 15 cm 4 cm.
The wet basis for the moisture content in a material is defined
as

(6)

Fig. 4. (a) Experimental setup to measure C for concrete samples and where is the mass of the specimen with water and is the
(b) placement of the sensor in the samples. mass of the specimen in dry condition. The moisture content of
a material by volume can be calculated as
III. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
To detect the percentage of moisture in concrete, two interdig- (7)
itated sensors were designed and fabricated. One was a meander
sensor and the other was a circular sensor. Two sensor configu- where is the density of concrete in dry condition and is
rations were chosen to create different field penetration depths. the density of water.
The meander sensor is simpler and has smaller field penetra- For measurement the sensor was placed between two concrete
tion depth than the circular sensor. For the same field penetra- samples. First, the sensor output voltage was measured for
tion depth, the circular sensor covers a larger surface area than the samples in dry condition. Since was known, the capac-
the meander sensor. The electrode width, height, gap, and spa- itance was found using (1). After completion of the mea-
tial wavelength of the meander sensor were 1.125 mm, 17 , surement in dry condition, the concrete samples were weighed
1.125 mm, and 4.5 mm, respectively. Thus, the field penetration in a scale to determine . Then, the samples were placed in
depth for the meander sensor is about 1.5 mm. For the circular a 13.5-l water bucket and were completely submerged in water
sensor these dimensions were 1.5 mm, 17 , 2 mm, and 7 mm, for two days.
respectively. Hence, the field penetration depth for the circular Wet samples were taken out from the water bucket. Since ex-
sensor is about 7/3 mm. The meander sensor was fabricated on cess water present on the concrete surface had the potentials for
a 10 mil thick Duroid 5880 ( ) substrate and the circular erroneous results (high and high ) due to the high per-
sensor was fabricated on a 31 mil thick Duroid 5880 substrate. mittivity of water the outer surfaces of the samples were wiped
Referring to Fig. 1, the meander sensor had seven driving elec- off using a dry cloth.
trodes, four sensing electrodes, and two guard electrodes. The A detailed experimental measurement setup is shown in
length of each electrode was 20 mm. For the circular sensor Fig. 4. The sensor was placed between the wet concrete sam-
(see Fig. 5), the inner diameter of the innermost sensing elec- ples. At regular periodic intervals, was recorded and the
trode was 6 mm. The circular sensor had 12 driving electrodes, weight of the concrete samples was measured. For each
ten sensing electrodes, and two guard electrodes. Both sensors reading, was found using (1) while the moisture content
were coated with very thin perylene coating to avoid short cir- was found using (6) and (7). Thus, for each case, a new
cuit with the concrete, especially in the wet condition. A 1-kHz, and its corresponding was found. Since the evaporation
10-V (peak) sinusoidal signal was chosen for . The ampli- rate depended on the environment, the ambient temperature and
tude of the signal was small enough to prevent the opamp from the air flow, an external fan was used to make the evaporation
saturating. The feedback capacitor was 100 pF. process faster.

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1246 IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 10, NO. 7, JULY 2010

Fig. 7. Comparison between the measured, analytical and simulated data for
the meander sensor.

The sensitivity of the circular sensor is 5.454 pF/ percent change

in moisture content.

B. Comparison Between Experimental and Simulation Results

Ansoft Maxwell 3-D was used to simulate the sensor re-
sponses for both the meander and the circular sensors. Fig. 5 is
an example of the simulation model which was used for the full
circular sensor. In the simulation, we were not able to account
for the moisture content directly. In [17], experimental data of
relative permittivity and conductivity versus frequency for four
different levels of moisture content in concrete (from Fig. 2
of [17]) are available. These data are valid for the frequency
range of 10 MHz to 1 GHz. We extended their curves down to
1 kHz using curve fitting in Matlab. Then, we developed linear
Fig. 6. Measured capacitance, C versus moisture content, M for (a) the relations between the relativity permittivity and conductivity
meander sensor and (b) the full circular sensor. with percentage of moisture content using curve fitting. The
resulting relative permittivity and conductivity values were
used in our Maxwell simulations. The relative permittivity ( )
IV. RESULTS and conductivity ( ) of the concrete samples that were used
A. Experimental Results in our simulation and analytical studies (3)–(4) were: 4.4323,
0.000224; 6.0333, 0.0009; 7.177, 0.00215; 8.549, 0.00444; and
Measured versus data for both the meander and the 9.693, 0.007 for moisture contents of 0%, 1.816%, 3.1135%,
circular sensor are shown in Fig. 6. A linear regression analysis 4.67%, and 5.968%, respectively.
was also performed on the measured data. From Fig. 6(a), in In Maxwell 3-D, the solution type was electrostatic. The
dry condition while for , driving electrodes were set to 10 V and the other electrodes
. The presence of water in the wet concrete clearly re- including the backplane were set to 0 V. The default boundary
sulted in the increase in (126.4% increase). The sensitivity condition, the Neumann homogeneous condition was used. The
of the meander sensor is 0.519 pF/percent change in moisture capacitances between the driving electrodes and the sensing
content. Fig. 6(a) also shows that the coefficient of determina- electrodes were computed for the four different cases.
tion when . Measured versus Since equations (2) to (5) can only correctly describe the ca-
results for the circular sensor are shown in Fig. 6(b). Since the pacitance for the meander sensor, analytical results were ob-
field penetration depth of the circular sensor is larger than that tained only for the meander sensor.
of the meander sensor the resulting linear regression curve in Comparison between the experimental, simulation, and ana-
Fig. 6(b) is steeper than the curve in Fig. 6(a). The coefficient of lytical data for the meander sensor is shown in Fig. 7. As seen,
determination . In dry condition in general the agreement between all three is quite good. Some
while with , (187% increase). deviation is observed at higher moisture content levels. Fig. 8

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ALAM et al.: CONCRETE MOISTURE CONTENT MEASUREMENT USING INTERDIGITATED NEAR-FIELD SENSORS
Fig. 8. Comparison of measured and simulated capacitance for the full circular
sensor.
illustrates the comparison between the experimental and simu-
lation results for the circular sensor. Again, agreement is excel-
lent for low moisture contents. The measured results are 10%
to 20% higher than the simulated results for moisture contents
larger than 4%.
V. CONCLUSION
The prospect of detecting and measuring moisture in concrete
samples was investigated using two interdigitated sensors, e.g., a
meander sensor and a full circular sensor. The measurement data
clearly indicate that both types of sensors can detect and mea-
sure moisture in concrete. There is a distinctly linear relation-
ship between the moisture content in the concrete and the mea-
sured interelectrode capacitance. Hence, the amount of mois-
ture present can be easily predicted from the measured capaci-
tance. The disagreement between the simulation and measure-
ment data can be due to the following. First, as mentioned, in
our Maxwell simulations the exact values of the relative permit-
tivity and conductivity of concrete at 10 kHz and as function of
moisture content was not available. We used curve fitting to ex-
trapolate data from the measured permittivity and conductivity
data of concrete that was valid from 10 MHz to 1 GHz. Since
Maxwell does not use moisture content values directly accurate
values of relative permittivity and conductivity are essential to
obtain accurate simulation results. Second, perhaps during the
wiping off of the concrete surface there was some standing water
on the concrete surface. Although the outside concrete surfaces
were wiped off with a dry cloth but the uneven surface might
have allowed for some water to still remain on the surface. In
the future one may envision that such sensors in miniature form
will be integrated with wireless modules and embedded inside
concrete samples for moisture content measurement in order to
prevent premature corrosion of the steel reinforcements.
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1247
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[13] R. H. Bhuiyan, R. A. Dougal, and M. Ali, “Proximity coupled inter-
digitated sensors to detect insulation damage in power system cables,”
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[14] A. V. Mamishev, K. Sundara-Rajan, F. Yang, Y. Du, and M. Zahn, “In-
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[16] R. Y. Scapple, “A trimmable planar capacitor for hybrid applications,”
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[17] M. N. Soutsos, J. H. Bungey, S. G. Millard, M. R. Shaw, and A. Pat-
terson, “Dielectric properties of concrete and their influence on radar
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Md. Nazmul Alam (S’09) received the B.Sc. and
M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Tech-
nology, Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2006 and 2008,
respectively.
Since 2009, he has been a Graduate Research As-
sistant with the Microwave Engineering Laboratory,
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of
South Carolina, Columbia. His research interests in-
clude sensor design and integration, RFID, and de-
signing of microwave antennas.
1248
Rashed H Bhuiyan (S’09) received the B.Sc. and
M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Tech-
nology, Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2003 and 2005,
respectively. He is currently working towards the
Ph.D. degree in the Department of Electrical Engi-
neering, University of South Carolina, Columbia.
He is the author of multiple international con-
ference and journal papers. He also served as a
faculty member with the Bangladesh University of
Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, from 2003 to
2005. His current research interests include miniature electromagnetic sensor
design, antennas, and RF circuits.
Roger A. Dougal (M’82–SM’94) received the Ph.D.
degree from Texas Tech University, Lubbock, in
1983.
He leads the Power and Energy Group, Elec-
trical Engineering Department, University of South
Carolina (USC), Columbia, which has a principal
research focus in the general area of power elec-
tronics. As a member of the Board of Directors
of the Electric Ship Research and Development
Consortium, he oversees USC’s activities related to
new power generation, processing, and distribution
technologies for ships. He is also the Site Director for a new NSF-spon-
sored Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Grid-connected
Advanced Power Electronics, which is a joint project between USC and the
University of Arkansas. Also, since 1996, under sponsorship of the Office of
Naval Research, he has overseen development of the Virtual Test Bed software,
which is a comprehensive simulation and virtual prototyping environment
for multidisciplinary dynamic systems. This environment has been applied
in studies of electric systems for navy ships, electrochemical power sources,
hybrid power sources, power electronics, and controls.
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IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL, VOL. 10, NO. 7, JULY 2010
Mohammod Ali (M’93–SM’03) received the B.Sc.
degree in electrical and electronic engineering from
the Bangladesh University of Engineering and
Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 1987, and the
M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees, both in electrical engi-
neering, from the University of Victoria, Victoria,
BC, Canada, in 1994 and 1997, respectively.
He was with the Bangladesh Institute of Tech-
nology, Chittagong, from 1988 to 1992. From
January 1998 to August 2001, he was with Ericsson
Inc., Research Triangle Park, NC. Since August
2001, he has been with the Department of Electrical Engineering, University
of South Carolina, Columbia, where currently he is an Associate Professor. He
had also held appointments as a Visiting Research Scientist with the Motorola
Corporate EME Research Laboratory, Plantation, FL, from June to August
2004. He established the Microwave Engineering Laboratory at the University
of South Carolina in 2001. He is the author/coauthor of over 100 publications
and five granted U.S. patents. His research interests include miniaturized
packaged (embedded) antennas, meta-materials and their antenna applications,
distributed wireless sensors and rectennas, and portable/wearable antennas and
their interactions with humans (SAR).
Dr. Ali is the recipient of the 2003 National Science Foundation Faculty Ca-
reer Award. He is also the recipient of the College of Engineering and Informa-
tion Technology Young Investigator Award and the Research Progress Award
from the University of South Carolina in 2006 and in 2008, respectively. He
was the Technical Program Co-Chair of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation So-
ciety’s International Symposium in Charleston, SC, in 2009. He has also served
as a member of the Technical Program Committee for the IEEE Antennas and
Propagation Society’s International Symposium for a number of years. He has
served as a reviewer and panelist for grant proposals for a number of federal and
local funding agencies. He is an Associate Editor for the IEEE ANTENNAS AND
WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS.