A new equation for dielectric permittivity of saturated soils based on polarization mechanics

Based on polarization mechanisms, such as electronic, ionic and orientational polarizations, a new equation for dielectric permittivity of soil is proposed to interpret the dielectric behavior of a mixture like soil, in terms of polarization process of its components and the interactions between its components. The dielectric permittivity is expressed in terms of a fre-quency-dependent part and a frequency-independent part. These two parts correspond to polarizations occurred at different fre-quency range. It is a new volumetric mixing model with theoretical background. Based on time domain reflectometry (TDR) measurements of saturated soil samples and test data from literature, comparisons of this model with some well established mixing models show that the curves for saturated sand soils and slurries resulted from the new equation, which agree well with TDR measurements, are close to those calculated from Birchak's model.