A Close Up on COMSOL for Soil-sensor Design

Ronald W. Gamache - TransTech Systems, Inc., Schenectady, NY

The best way to describe improvements added by the software is to work through an engineering problem, such as a sensor redesign. Our company produces an asphalt sensor that measures to a depth of 4 in. We wanted to apply this sensor to measure soil to a 12-in. depth but needed to limit its diameter.

The primary design parameters were the shape and configuration of the sensing plates and associated ground planes. As there is no closed form solution for the electric field for this configuration, we resorted to simulation with COMSOL Multiphysics.