Accurate Measurements of Complex Permittivity of

Liquid Based on a TM
010
Mode Cylindrical
Cavity Method
Hirokazu Kawabata, Yoshio Kobayashi
Saitama University, Department of Electrical and Electronic Systems
Shimo-ookubo 255, Sakura-ku, Saitama-shi, Saitama 338-8570, Japan
Phone: +81-48-858-3477, Fax: +81-48-857-2529, E-mail: yoshio@reso.ees.saitama-u.ac.jp
Abstract Accurate values of complex permittivity of
two kinds of liquids have been measured by using a TM
010
mode cylindrical cavity method. The conventional cavity
perturbation method is improved on the basis of the
rigorous analysis by the Ritz-Galerkin method, where the
effects of sample insertion holes, a dielectric tube, and air-
gap between a dielectric tube and sample insertion holes are
taken into account. Actually, the values of the complex
permittivity of ethanol and milk were measured as functions
of the weight percentage of ethanol to water and the milk fat
percentage, respectively. These measured results are useful
to estimate the content percentage.
I. INTRODUCTION
The cavity perturbation method has been commonly
used as a simple one to measure the complex permittivity
of liquids [1]-[5]. It is well known in this method that the
measurement accuracy is limited because of the influence
of sample insertion holes and the calculation error
included intrinsically in the perturbation formulas [6].
The authors presented the accurate and easy-to-treatment
method to measure the complex permittivity of liquids by
using the rigorous analysis based on the Ritz-Galerkin
method [1]-[4].
In this paper, the values of the complex permittivity of
two kinds of liquids, namely, ethanol and milk are
measured by using a TM
010
mode cylindrical cavity
method. From measured results, this method is shown to
be useful to estimate the weight percentage of ethanol
and milk fat percentage.
II. MEASUREMENT PRINCIPLE
The configuration of a TM
0mp
mode cylindrical cavity
used in these measurements is shown in Fig.1. The cavity
has diameter D=2R
4
, height 2L, and sample insertion
holes of diameter d
3
=2R
3
oriented coaxially. A dielectric
tube, which is used to guide a liquid sample into the
cavity, has inner diameter d
1
=2R
1
, outer diameter d
2
=2R
2
,
and length 2H. From the perturbation formulas, the
complex permittivity, c
p
and tano
p
of liquid are given
approximately by
1
1
2
1 1
0
1
+
|
|
.
|

\
|
=
d
D
f
f f
a
p
c (1)
|
|
.
|

\
|

|
|
.
|

\
|
=
0 1
2
1
1 1
2
1
tan
u u p
p
Q Q d
D
a c
o (2)
where the constant a is 1.855. f
0
and Q
u0
are the resonant
frequency and unloaded Q measured for the cavity
without liquid. f
1
and Q
u1
are ones measured for the
cavity with liquid. These c
p
and tano
p
values are corrected
to the accurate value c
r
and tano
r
by
|
|
.
|

\
|
A
=
p
p r
c
c
c c 1 (3)
|
|
.
|

\
|
A
=
p
p r
o
o
o o
tan
tan
1 tan tan (4)
where the compensation terms Ac/c
p
and Atano/tano
p
are
expressed by
p
r p
p
c
c c
c
c

=
A
(5)
R
1
R
2
R
3
R
4
r
region [1] c
1
z
H
L
g
0
Elec. or
Sample
region [2] c
2
region [3] c
3
region [4] c
4
plane (z=0)
Dielectric tube
Conductor
Symmetrical
Mag. wall (z=H)
insertion hole
d
1
=2R
1
d
2
=2R
2
d
3
=2R
3
D=2R
4
c
i
=c
ri
c
0
) 4 , , 1 ( = i
Fig. 1 Configuration of a TM
0mp
mode
cylindrical cavity with a dielectric tube.
p
r p
p
o
o o
o
o
tan
tan tan
tan
tan

=
A
. (6)
These values can be calculated accurately from the
rigorous analysis based on the Ritz-Galerkin method and
have been presented in [1]-[4] as compensation charts for
a copper cavity and PTFE tube used in the measurement.
For convenience, the compensation charts presented in
[3] are shown in Fig. 2.
III. MEASURED RESULTS
A. Parameters of Cavity and Dielectric Tube
The cavity used in the measurements is shown in Fig.3.
The cavity parameters for an empty cavity were
estimated by using the rigorous analysis [1]-[4]. D was
calculated from the measured f
0
for the TM
010
mode with
2R
3
=3.0mm and g=10.0mm. The depth of insertion holes,
g was determined as a value which is not influenced by
the electric and magnetic wall conditions at z=H. The 2L
was calculated from D obtained above and the resonant
frequency f
2
measured for the TM
011
mode. The accurate
values of D and 2L are obtained by repeating these
procedures. o
r
was obtained from the measured unloaded
Q
u
for an empty cavity. An outer size d
2
of the PTFE tube
was measured by a micrometer and an inner size d
1
was
determined from the difference between the tube weight
with and without pure water. The complex permittivity of
the tube was obtained from the measured values of f
0
and
Q
u
for the TM
010
mode with a similar fashion in the case
of a dielectric rod. These results are shown in Table 1.
B. Complex Permittivity of Ethanol
The complex permittivity of ethanol was measured as a
function of the weight percentage N to water. The
measured frequency responses of a cavity are shown in
Fig.4. The dashed and two-dot dashed lines are for
dehydrated ethanol (100% of ethanol) and water (0% of
ethanol), respectively. The responses for the cavity with
Fig.2 Relative errors of (a) c
p
and (b) tano
p
for cavity with dielectric tube and holes.
Cavity(D=115.172mm, 2L=49.998mm, g=10mm,
2R
3
=3mm, o
r
=0.790), PTFE Tube(2R
1
=1.062mm,
2R
2
=2.077mm, c
r
=2.059, tano
r
=4.0x10
-4
)
Fig.3 Copper Cavity used in the
measurements
tano
r
(X10
-4
)
115.155 49.998 78.8 1.086 2.077 2.058 3.7
0.001 0.001 0.1 0.007 0.002 0.007 0.2
d
2
(mm) c
r
Cavity PTFE Tube
D (mm) 2L (mm) o
r
d
1
(mm)
Table 1 Measured results of a copper cavity
and a PTFE tube. (at 25
o
C)
(b)
(a)
-0.04
-0.03
-0.02
-0.01
0.00
0.01
A
c
/
c
p
1
2 4 6 8
10
2 4 6 8
100
c
p
Comp.curve
Pure Water
Ethanol
(99.5%)
Meas.
-0.020
-0.010
0.000
0.010
0.020
A
t
a
n
o
/

t
a
n
o
p
0.001
2 4 6
0.01
2 4 6
0.1
2 4 6
1
tan o
p
c
p
=80
70
20
40
8
60
Comp.curve
Pure Water
Ethanol
(99.5%)
Meas.
and without a dielectric tube are also shown as
comparison.
The measured results of the resonant frequency and
unloaded Q are shown in Fig.5. The measurements were
carried out two times and each measurement is shown by
the cross or round marks. It is found that the values of f
1
increase proportionally with the increase in ethanol
percentage. The complex permittivity of ethanol was
obtained from these measured values and is shown in
Fig.6. It is found that the values of c
r
decrease and the
values of tano
r
increase with the increase of ethanol
percentage.
C. Complex Permittivity of Milk
Similarly, the complex permittivity of milk at hand was
measured as a function of milk fat percentage N. Each
milk sample has the different weight percentage of milk
fat N and nonfat milk solid M. These values are
-70
-60
-50
-40
-30
-20
-10
|
S
2
1
|

(
d
B
)
2.00 1.99 1.98 1.97 1.96 1.95
Frequency (GHz)
Empty Cavity
PTFE Tube
Water
Dehydrated Ethanol
Fig.4 Frequency responses of a cavity with
liquid samples.
1.990
1.985
1.980
1.975
1.970
1.965
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y

(
G
H
z
)
100 80 60 40 20 0
Ethanol (%)
First
Second
500
450
400
350
300
250
200
150
Q
u
100 80 60 40 20 0
Ethanol (%)
80
60
40
20
0
c
r
100 80 60 40 20 0
Ethanol (%)
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
t
a
n
o
r
100 80 60 40 20 0
Ethanol (%)
Fig.6 Variation of c
r
and tano
r
as a function of ethanol percentage.
Fig.5 Variation of f
1
and Q
u1
as a function of ethanol percentage.
shown in Table 2. Samples A, D, H, and I are fresh milk
and C is processed milk. Sample B is a mixture of A and
D. Samples E, F, and G are mixtures of D and H.
Measured results of the complex permittivity of milk are
shown in Fig.7. It is found that the values of c
r
decrease
and the values of tano
r
increase with increasing N.
IV. CONCLUSION
It was verified that the accurate and easy-to-treatment
method to correct the values obtained by the perturbation
method is useful. The measurement precisions improved
by this method are -0.8~-2.4% for c
r
and -0.5 ~ 1.6% for
tano
r
. The content percentage of liquids is estimated by
measuring the complex permittivity c
r
. This method is
also expected to be used to monitor the concentration of a
material in liquids.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The cavity used in this measurement was provided by
Mr. K. Tahara, KEAD Co. (http://www.kead.co.jp). The
authors would like to thank Mr. T. Kobayashi, Mr. R.
Nakamura, and Mr. T. Suzuki of Saitama University for
their assistance and support in this work.
REFERENCES
[1] H.Kawabata, H.Tanpo, and Y.Kobayashi, "Analysis and
experiments of a TM
010
mode cylindrical cavity to
measure accurate complex permittivity of liquid," IEICE
Trans. Electron., vol. E87-C, No. 8, pp. 694-699, May
2004.
[2] H.Kawabata, H.Tanpo, and Y.Kobayashi, "A rigorous
analysis of a TM
010
mode cylindrical cavity to measure
accurate complex permittivity of liquid," in Proceedings of
the 33rd European Microwave Conference, vol. 2, pp.
759-762, Munich, Oct. 2003.
[3] H.Kawabata, H.Tanpo, and Y.Kobayashi, "An improvement
of perturbation method for the complex permittivity
measurements of liquids," in Proceedings of the 2003
Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference, WEP-65, pp. 576-
579, Soul, Nov. 2003.
[4] H.Kawabata, H.Tanpo, and Y.Kobayashi, "An improved
perturbation method using a TM
010
mode cylindrical
cavity," in Proceedings of the 2002 Asia-Pacific
Microwave Conference, TH4D-2, pp. 1007-1010, Kyoto,
Nov. 2002.
[5] Kapilevich B.Yu, S.G.Ogourtsov, V.G.Belenkey,
A.B.Maslenikov, and Abbas S.Omar, "Accurate
microwave resonant method for complex permittivity
measurements of liquids," IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory
Tech., vol. 48, No. 11, pp. 2159-2164, Nov. 2000.
[6] A.J.Estin, and H.E.Bussey, "Errors in dielectric
measurements due to a sample insertion hole in a cavity,"
IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 8, No. 6,
pp.650-653, Nov. 1960.
Fig.7 Variation of c
r
and tano
r
as a function of milk fat percentage N.
Table 2 Weight percentage of milk fat N and
nonfat milk solid M included in milk samples.
Sample A B C D E F G H I
N(%) 0.1 0.8 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4.2
M(%) 8.3 8.3 10 8.3 8.3 8.3 8.3 8.3 8.7
72
70
68
66
64
c
r
5 4 3 2 1 0
Milk Fat N (%)
I
H
G
F
E
D
C
B
A
Fresh Milk 100%
Processed milk
Mixture
0.24
0.22
0.20
0.18
t
a
n
o
r
5 4 3 2 1 0
Milk fat N (%)
I
H
G
E
F C
D A B
Fresh Milk 100%
Processed milk
Mixture