• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.9
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• pp.1007-1023
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• 2010

This paper describes the development and evaluation of an innovative TDR distributed moisture sensor. This sensor features advantages of being responsive to the spatial variations of the soil moisture content. The geometry design of the sensor makes it rugged for field installation. Good linear calibration is obtained between the sensor measured dielectric constant and soil physical properties. Simulations by the finite element method (FEM) are conducted to assist the design of this sensor and to determine the effective sampling range. Compared with conventional types of moisture sensor, which only makes point measurement, this sensor possesses distributed moisture sensing capability. This new sensor is not only easy to install, but also measures moisture distribution with much lower cost. This new sensor holds promise to significantly improve the current field instruments. It will be a useful tool to help study the influence of a variety of moisture-related phenomena on infrastructure performance.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.85-94
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• 1998

Due to relatively high permittivity of water in soils, we placed the soil condenser into soils to measure the soil moisture content. The soil condenser was made with two insulated iron sticks. The capacitance of the soil condenser was determined by the pulse period from RC type oscillation circuit and the highest voltage output accepting 10MHz pulse. After zero point adjustment, the measured relative capacitance percentage (RCS) to the standard condenser obtained by the oscillation circuit almost linearly correlated with the end depth of the sensor submerged in water. The RC type oscillation was disturbed by many sensor installed in a close distance in one place, presumably resulting in that the sensor sticks played as a interfering antennas generating or accepting electron waves from them. The temperature dependance of the output from the sensors could be corrected through experimentally determined revision function. Although lineal correlation was found between soil moisture and RCS, users should derive their own correlation function for every sensor to measure soil moisture, because the outputs were influenced by the installation depth and layout in the soil. The voltage type sensor responded inversely with soil moisture content and so was not suitable to the accurate measurement of soil moisture, but allows high economic benefit in various application such as simplified measurement of soil moisture and irrigation line control because of its low component count. The voltage type moisture sensor could be reinforced by relay controlling circuit to open and to close the solenoid valves respectively at optimal limits of the least and the most soil moisture according to user's adjustment.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.182-186
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• 2013

We studied the possibility that an air capacitor can be used as a humidity sensor by measuring capacitance change. In order to investigate the possibility, the change of capacitance of an air capacitor due to moisture in air was first considered theoretically, and was then experimentally verified. The capacitance was measured by an LCR impedance meter with a 100-kHz and 1-V ac. The results revealed that the changes in the experimentally measured capacitances were greater than those in the theoretically calculated values. Based on this fact, we knew that an air capacitor could be used as part of a humidity sensing device. We expect the humidity sensor with an air capacitor has characteristics of fast response time, high reliability, and high durability compared with other conventional methods.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2022.11a
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• pp.29-30
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• 2022

The unit-water content has a very significant effect on the durability of the construction structure and the quality of concrete. Although there are various methods for measuring the unit-water content, there are problems of time required for measurement, precision, and reproducibility. Recently, there is an FDR sensor capable of measuring moisture content in real time through an apparent dielectric constant change of electromagnetic waves. In addition, various artificial intelligence techniques that can non-linearly supplement the accuracy of FDR sensors are being studied. In this study, the accuracy of unit-water content measurement was compared and evaluated using machine learning and deep learning techniques after normalizing the data secured in concrete using frequency domain reflectometry (FDR) sensors used to measure soil moisture at home and abroad. The result of comparing the accuracy of machine learning and deep learning is judged to be excellent in the accuracy of deep learning, which can well express the nonlinear relationship between FDR sensor data and concrete unit-water content.

• Proceedings of the Korea Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.161-166
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• 2006

A new fiber orientation sensor has been developed and tested on an actual paper machine to demonstrate its capability to function as a real-time monitoring system. First, we demonstrate the ability of the sensor system to detect the change in the fiber orientation angle while the sensor head, and not the paper, was intentionally rotated from $-90^{\circ}\;to\;+70^{\circ}$ with respect to the paper-traveling direction. Next, we demonstrate that this system can successfully detect the change in the magnitude and angle of fiber orientation in running paper when the direction of material flow on the wire was changed on the paper machine. The angle and magnitude of fiber orientation were independently confirmed by SST and MOA measurements. Furthermore, we found that the system was capable of measuring the basis weight and the moisture content of running paper while detecting the angle and magnitude of fiber orientation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.130-136
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• 2004

Presence of water in the lubricating oils could be one of the first indicators of potentially expensive and possibly catastrophic failure of the machine as it may cause displace the oil films to prevent the lubrication function of the oil or chemically react with many oil additives resulting in the oil degradation. In order to detect water content quantitatively in lubricating oils many methods and sensors has been developed. Among these, capacitive sensors including sensitive layer, whose dielectric factor changes according to the water content absorbed in the layer, are proposed mainly in the market. But these sensors are not sensitive to a high water content. Besides, the absorbing layer soils in time. In this work, an evaporation of water moisture from oil into air volume above lubricant surface and condensation of water vapor at a cooling surface was used to measure water content quantitatively in an lubricating oil. Laboratory test results of a prototype sensor were presented. Test results showed that the proposed method could be avaliable to measure a low levels of oil moisture.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.15-23
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• 2000

RC oscillation method was applied to study the condenser characteristics of two metal sticks insulated by vinyl tube and used in the dielectric constant determinations of most soils. Its capacitance as influenced by the contacted ambient materials was measured as relative capacitance of the sensor sticks compared with the standard one on the RC oscillation circuit. According to the equivalent circuit of the sensor stick set, the measured capacitance was composed of a basic capacitance connected in parallel with sensor stick capacitance, which was composed of lineally connected vinyl tube capacitances and the sensing part capacitance. The dielectric constant (U) of the contacted ambient moist soil located in the sensing part around the sticks interrelated with the other parameters as following equation. $$\frac{1}{C-B}=\frac{k}{U}+Z$$ where C is the output total relative capacitance, B is the hidden and fixed basic relative capacitance, k is a constant related with U, and Z is a constant for the insulating vinyl tube capacitances determined by its thickness and dielectric constant. The constant k is determined by the spacing and length of sensor sticks. The Z value is theoretically an invariable constant, but it may become considerably bigger than the determined in lab if air tube is formed on the surface of sensor sticks by some shocks on them after their installation in soil. Due to the unstability of lab Z value, it may be better to revise it after sensor stick's installation in soil and no shaking shocks should be applied on them.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.329-336
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• 2013

The infrastructure of flexible pavement is composed of aggregate subbase, anti-frost layer, and subgrade. In particular, the subgrade performance is affected by climates such as frost action and precipitation. The method of TDR(Time Domain Reflectometry) sensors to measure moisture contents in subgrade layer has been used in the research. Due to the TDR method using dielectric permitivity of soil and water, the sensors can be affected by the low subgrade temperatures. The air temperatures frequently drops below $-20^{\circ}C$ in the winter in Korea. As a result, it is necessary to estimate the accuracy of the TDR moisture sensors in the range of below zero temperatures. In this study, the subgrade temperatures of lower than $-2^{\circ}C$ were extended to evaluate temperature sensitivity of the TDR moisture sensors. The test results revealed that the moisture contents around the sensors were reduced while those of the upper part of specimen showed a tendency to increase as the specimen surface temperature drops below zero under the volumetric moisture contents(VMC) of 20% and 30%. However, the impact of temperature on the function of the sensor at lower water contents was found to be negligible if any.