The effect of clay and organic matter content on the dielectric permittivity of soils and grounds at the frequency range from 10 MHz to 1 GHz

In this paper, the results of measurements in the frequency range from 10 MHz to 1.0 GHz of the complex dielectric permittivity for some moist artificial soil, that is, mixtures consisting of quartz sand and bentonite clay components, with varying particle-size distributions, are discussed. The measurements were conducted with the use of coaxial line and capacitor probes in conjunction with a vector network analyzer. The complex permittivity was found to increase with the frequency decreasing and moisture increasing. In this case, the greatest variations in dielectric constant with frequency, in the limit of factor 3, were observed for the samples containing a largest percentage of clay.