Electrical Resistivity Characteristic of Soils

흙의 전기비저항 특성

The resistivity of soils depends on grains size, porosity, water saturation, pore fluid resistivity, caly contents and son on. It is very important to understand the relationship between resistivity and such physical properties of soils, in order to interpret and evaluate ground conditions by using resistivity data obtained from electrical resistivity prospecting. In this paper, to study the relationship between resistivity and physical properties of soils, the resistivity of glass beads and compacted soil samples both in saturated and unsaturated conditions is measured. As the results, the resistivity of saturated soils depends mainly on porosity and clay contents, while that of unsaturated soils is sensitive to compaction conditions, and decreases with increasing water content until the optimum water condition, that is the maximum dry density. But, the relationship between resistivity and water saturation for soils is unique, being independent of compaction energy. Also, the resistivity ratio decrease with increasing water saturation, followed by no significant change of resistivity ratio over 80 percent of water saturation (the optimum water content).