INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN APPLIED SCIENCE (IJRIAS)
ISSN No. 2454-6194 | DOI: 10.51584/IJRIAS |Volume X Issue X October 2025
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Page 241
Development of Experimental Device for Frequency Dependence of
Electro-Physical Properties of Highly Conductive Dielectrics Based
on Three-Voltage Method
Hui Won Pak, Chon Ung Kim*, Yu Song Kim
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Kim Chaek University of Technology, Democratic People’s Republic
of Korea
*Corresponding author
DOI: https://doi.org/10.51584/IJRIAS.2025.1010000018
Received: 10 Sep 2025; Accepted: 17 Sep 2025; Published: 28 October 2025
ABSTRACT
In the case of highly conductive dielectric materials such as water and other aqueous liquids, semi-conductive
stress grading materials, etc., there are some difficulties and limitations in measuring their electro-physical
parameters using the measurement methods and conventional metal electrodes. This paper describes the
development of an experimental device capable of measuring dielectric permittivity and dielectric loss tangent
of the above-mentioned highly conductive dielectric materials in the comparatively wide frequency range of
power frequencies to 1 MHz, the principle of which is based on the three-voltage method; and also, it has been
dealt with how to design the hardware and software. The operating characteristic and reliability of the designed
and manufactured experimental device were verified through the simulation by using electrical equivalent
circuit method and comparing with the measurement data for the standard experiment device.
Keywords: Lossy dielectrics, Electro-physical property, Three-voltage measurement method, Frequency
dependence
INTRODUCTION
Most of materials, such as various inorganic, polymeric materials and their composites, semi-conductive
stress-grading materials, water and aqueous solutions, etc. are non-conductive ones from the viewpoint of
electro-physical properties. Since the electro-physical properties of these dielectric materials are closely related
to their internal information, including their chemical structures, composition, molecular bonding and mobility,
the electro-physical measurement techniques have long been widely applied in practice[2,3]. In industrial
practice, there exist not only high-resistivity dielectrics whose conductivity is quite close to zero like electrical
insulation materials, but also do high-conductivity dielectric materials such as water and various aqueous
solutions, semi-conductive stress-grading dielectrics. Because of the high conductivity, it is difficult and
limited to measure the electro-physical properties of the above-mentioned highly lossy dielectric materials by
using the same methods and contact-type metal electrodes as those of high resistivity dielectrics.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN APPLIED SCIENCE (IJRIAS)
ISSN No. 2454-6194 | DOI: 10.51584/IJRIAS |Volume X Issue X October 2025
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Page 242
For example, when the dielectric sample is highly conductive, it may be difficult to adjust both the equilibrium
state of the electrical components in the bridge method and the LC resonance state in the Q-meter method.
Therefore, it is of theoretical and practical importance to develop a device capable of measuring the
electro-physical parameters of various high-conductivity dielectric materials widely used in various industrial
applications.[1-7]
This paper aims to introduce the development of an experimental device capable of measuring the dielectric
permittivity and dielectric loss tangent of highly conductive dielectric materials in the frequency range of
power frequencies to 1 MHz based on the three-voltage method.[11]
Measurement and operation principles of device
In general, the permittivity and dielectric loss tangent values of a dielectric sample can be obtained from the
impedance measurements of the sample. The impedance of a dielectric sample is determined by the ratio of the
AC voltage applied across the sample to the AC flowing through it (Fig1). In Fig 1,
XZ is the impedance of
the electrode system containing the dielectric sample.
The equivalent circuit and vector diagram for realizing the measurement principle diagram shown in Fig 1 are
given in Fig 2. In Fig 2(a), the resistance R plays the role of sensing the current flow through the dielectric
sample considered.[9, 12]
Fig 1: The principle diagram for measuring electrical impedance of dielectric sample
Fig 2: The principle of a highly lossy dielectric (a) Equivalent circuit (b)Voltage vectors
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN APPLIED SCIENCE (IJRIAS)
ISSN No. 2454-6194 | DOI: 10.51584/IJRIAS |Volume X Issue X October 2025
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Page 243
According to dielectric theory, it is known to be reasonable to use the equivalent circuit of the capacitance
XC
and the resistance
XR in series for a highly lossy dielectric sample.
From the voltage vector diagram shown in Fig 2(b) corresponding to Fig 2(a), the capacitance
XC and the
tangent of the dielectric loss angle tanδ of the highly lossy dielectric sample under consideration at an arbitrary
frequency condition can be obtained from the following equations:
cos2 x
r
x
RUf
U
C (1)
Here,
XC -sensing capacity, f -frequency, R -resistance value, xU -voltage for
XC ,
rU -voltage for
XR ,
cos -cosine of δ
1
2
1
tan
2
222
xr
xr
UUU
UU
(2)
As can be seen from Equation 1 and Equation 2, the electro-physical properties of a highly conductive
dielectric can be easily obtained by only measuring the input alternating voltage U, the voltages
rU and xU
applied across the current-sensing resistance and the dielectric sample electrode, respectively in the equivalent
circuit given in Fig 2.
Hardware and software configuration
Circuit configuration and operating principle of the hardware
The hardware of the experimental device for measuring the electro-physical properties of a highly lossy
dielectric consists of power supply unit, negative voltage output unit, oscillation control unit, main control unit,
voltage measurement unit, communication unit, keyboard input unit, current-sensing resistance selection unit,
display unit and quartz crystal oscillation unit.
In this hardware, the alternating voltage of any desired frequency is applied to the input of the circuit of the
current-sensing resistor and dielectric sample electrode in serial by a harmonic oscillator AD9833 controlled
by a microprocessor Atmega32.
The hardware is equipped with three measuring units in total, including the units of measuring the voltages
applied across the sample electrode, current-sensing resistance and circuit input, respectively.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN APPLIED SCIENCE (IJRIAS)
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Fig 3: The block diagram of the hardware circuits
In the microprocessor, the voltage measurement values are simultaneously received from these three
measuring units, and analyzed by using AD conversion.
And also, this hardware is equipped with a communication unit embedded, which is centered on MAX232,
enabling RS-232 communication with the personal computer, and sends the data from the personal computer to
the microprocessor.
In the personal computer interface, the detailed parameters of the frequency of the voltage to be applied to the
circuit are set and sent to the microprocessor.
In order to obtain the tangent values of the dielectric loss angle of the sample in a certain frequency range, the
frequency range should be set, with the starting point, endpoint and frequency rise values set at the personal
computer interface, and then transmitted to the microprocessor.
LabVIEW is chosen as the software development platform for the hardware control of experimental device
Microprocessor control software
Microprocessor control software consists of the data communication receiver, data communication transmitter,
voltage data analog-to-digital converter, voltage measurement, SPI communication, AD9833 control, LCD
display, transfer function, additional resistance option, voltage measurement and transmission command,
frequency interval setting command, experiment executive, keyboard usage command, and main program
executive.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN APPLIED SCIENCE (IJRIAS)
ISSN No. 2454-6194 | DOI: 10.51584/IJRIAS |Volume X Issue X October 2025
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Fig 4: Microprocessor block diagram
Verification of Device performance
Fig 5 shows the photographs of the real object and PC interface of the electro-physical experimental device for
highly conductive dielectric materials.
(a)
(b)
Fig 5. Experimental device (a) Hardware (b) PC interface
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN APPLIED SCIENCE (IJRIAS)
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For the purpose of verifying the performance of the experimental device shown in Fig 5, an equivalent sample
consisting of known resistance R and capacitance C in serial was used instead of the dielectric sample shown
in Fig 1.
The performance of the experimental device developed was verified by comparing the experimental values of
the capacitance and resistance obtained using the aforementioned three-voltage method with the known C and
R values of the equivalent circuit sample (Table 1).
Table 1. Results of the device performance verification.
Measurement
frequency
(Hz)
Equivalent circuit parameter
values
Experimental values
C(F) R(Ω) C(F) R(Ω)
60 4.8E-07 5251 4.94E-07 5408.5
400 2.9E-07 1379 2.98E-07 1420.3
6310 8.89E-08 283 9.15E-08 291.4
158500 4.8E-09 209 4.94E-09 215.2
1,000,000 7.52E-10 210 7.74E-10 216.3
Fig 6 shows the measurement results of the frequency dependences of capacitance and dielectric loss tangent
of tap water in the frequency range of 10 Hz to 1 MHz.
And also, the experimental data obtained for the tap water, one of typical high lossy dielectric materials using
the aforementioned three-voltage method were compared with those obtained using the well-known impedance
analyzer Solartron-1260(Table 2).
From the results of the measurement experiments, the following conclusions can be drawn:
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN APPLIED SCIENCE (IJRIAS)
ISSN No. 2454-6194 | DOI: 10.51584/IJRIAS |Volume X Issue X October 2025
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(a)
(b)
Fig 6: Result of Experiment device(a) Capacitance-frequency (b) tanδ-frequency
Table 2. The capacitance and dielectric loss tangent values of tap water
obtained using three-voltage method and Solartron-1260
Measurement
frequency
(Hz)
Three-voltage method Solartron 1260
C(F) R(Ω) C(pF) R(Ω)
100 4.33E-07 3893 4.21E-07 3780
1,000 2.28E-07 739 2.22E-07 718
10,000 6.47E-08 260 6.29E-08 253
100,000 7.78E-09 216 7.56E-09 210
1,000,000 7.76E-10 217 7.54E-10 211
First, the experimental device based on the three-voltage method can be effectively used for the measurement
of electro-physical properties of highly lossy dielectric materials in the frequency range below 1 MHz.
Second, too high and low conductivity of the lossy dielectric material considered may make it difficult to apply
the three-voltage method mentioned in this paper.
CONCLUSION
This paper has been dealt with the development of an experimental device capable of measuring the frequency
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN APPLIED SCIENCE (IJRIAS)
ISSN No. 2454-6194 | DOI: 10.51584/IJRIAS |Volume X Issue X October 2025
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Page 248
variation characteristics of electro-physical parameters of highly conductive dielectric materials, including
water, aqueous solution and semiconducting stress-grading dielectric materials in the comparatively wide
frequency range below 1MHz.
As mentioned above, the experimental device based on the three-voltage method can be effectively used for
the evaluation of the electro-physical properties of highly conductive dielectric materials and monitoring of
production processes, which may be widely used in light industry, agriculture, construction and other fields as
well as the electrical industry.
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