Use of a circuit simulator in electrical resistivity analysis

Abstract

Electrical resistivity methods are active geophysical exploration techniques with a very wide range of applications in geology, civil engineering, geotechnical engineering, geoenvironmental engineering, archaeology, water resources engineering, among many others. The premise of the technique is on how the applied electric current flows through geomaterials of different electrical properties in the subsurface, resulting in the measured electrical potential across two points on the ground surface. If the geomaterials can be idealized as an electric circuit composed of analogous circuit elements, a well-developed circuit simulator will become a readily available and indispensable tool to analyze and interpret the field data. The results of an attempt to adopt the approach are presented in this paper. Advantages and potential future developments of the approach to expand the applicability of the electrical methods in geophysical investigation are also discussed. © Copyright ASCE 2007.