Abstract

An overview of high-frequency methods for measuring and controlling the moisture content of various materials is given. The moisture content of cotton seeds is the main factor affecting their quality and quantity indicators in the technological processes of storage, transportation, processing. Therefore, measuring the moisture content of cotton seeds directly in the technological process is an urgent task. A mathematical model of a high-frequency moisture meter for cotton seeds has been built, in which the material under study is presented in the form of a complex dielectric in an electric field. A substitution scheme is proposed, containing a capacitance between the electrodes, as well as resistance capacities corresponding to various types of polarization. Four variants of the equivalent circuit are considered, which approximately describe the dependence of the dielectric loss tangent on the frequency of the used electromagnetic field. It is shown that the simplest parallel two-element RC equivalent circuit most closely matches the real description of the measurement object in the frequency range 105–108 Hz.