Design of non-destructive test on gold metal using parallel plate capacitance sensor: A conceptual framework

Abstract

It is very important to verify the gold content of karat-gold jewelry in order to avoid fraud and to guarantee the identity and the integrity of a gold bar. There are quite a number of techniques which are used to verify the gold content. Gold testing methods such as fire assay, touchstone testing and hydrostatic weighing have been used since the early civilization. In this paper, a conceptual framework for a non-destructive test to check gold content using parallel plate electrical capacitance tomography is being proposed. At the early stage, the possibility of using this method is being simulated using Comsol Multiphysic software. A complete design of a system is yet to be designed which include the sensor design, the main controller unit design and the method of reconstructing the image from the collected data. The simulation process has shown promising results to make this concept works. When a material is placed between the parallel plates, the permittivity distribution can be observed and based on the distribution, image of object can be reconstructed. Furthermore, there are significant results when the size and the permittivity of the object are varies.