Smart Moisture Content Measurement
A FRST supported project


Project Personnel:
 Ian Woodhead, John Christie, Paul Riding (Obj. 2), Kenji Irie (Obj. 2).
 

Project Description:
Moisture content and product composition are important parameters in many industries, often determining product quality and shelf life in products such as milk powder, flour, cheese, textiles and timber. The purpose of this research programme is to develop improved instrumentation techniques, hence providing benefits of increased international competitiveness of both instrumentation manufacturers and primary processing industry users.

To date, our research has:

  • developed new approaches for measuring moisture gradients in natural materials
  • extended techniques to monitor properties such as salt content in food products
  • devised new methods to measure the mean of a non-uniform moisture distribution.

    Indirectly, the work will result in more efficient use of natural resources, and provide gains in productivity and quality of exports from NZ's key value-added, food and fibre industries. We anticipate that we will conduct industry trials of these developments beginning from the third quarter of 2002. Thereafter, we envisage following our earlier successes that resulted in commercial development and growth of hi-tech exports (eg the Drycom moisture meter and Aquaflex soil moisture meter) through industry partners.

    The three main sections of this research work are:

    1. Micro-profiling of Moisture Content
    2. Analysis of Constituent Fraction in Process Streams
    3. Moisture Measurement of Inhomogeneous Materials



    Page last updated on 20 November 2001