Concrete Moisture Meter

Concrete is one of the most widely spread materials, used both, in private sector, like small building tasks in the garden or household, as well as in professional areas, when it goes about serious constructions, like bridges, buildings, various foundations. Measuring moisture content is not an optional task that may be carried out or neglected. Depending on the quality of the concrete mixture and then ready concrete, the service life of the constructions and, which is the most important, safety and robustness of them may fluctuate considerably. Application of the moisture meter definitely pays off in the future and the measurement should be carried out at all stages of the production, starting from the mixing stage till the moment of the concrete hardening. It is also important to pay attention to how much the concrete construction is exposed to rain or snow, eventual frost or heat, which elements are in direct contact with the concrete (metal, bricks, natural stone, wood). So, a concrete moisture meter is an instrument you need in any case.

Concrete moisture meters operate based on different measuring methods and it makes sense to take all the peculiarities into consideration to achieve the best, most accurate measuring result. One of the applied methods is the dielectric method, which is especially recommended for inspections when the surface should not be damaged. The concrete moisture meter is pressed to the surface and the pulses penetrate into the depth of the material. The moisture meter used for particular sort of concrete has information about the material in its memory. During the measurement the moisture meter registers the change in the character of the pulses, which are directly influenced by the moisture particles. The device due to the installed software recalculates the results of the measurements into the moisture value. The method is very reliable, accurate and the measurements can be carried out in a very short time.

During the mixing process, though, when concrete is not hard, moisture measurement is not less important, and the challenge is in that the moisture may be not homogeneously distributed in the whole batch, and the surface layer may provide different values from the results obtained from the bottom. That is why in-line measurement makes a lot of sense. The concrete moisture meter operating on microwave principle emits the energy and registers the loss of it, since the latter happens the more water is contained in the material. A certain amount of energy is reflected by the water particles and thus the device registers the difference and the moisture content can be calculated. This type of measurement is suitable for measuring process when the temperature does not change, since in the other case the task becomes very challenging, because of the need to compensate the non linearity.