This is an introductory course on electrical resistivity and induced polarization methods: the schedule is flexible, on the basis of the needs of the trainees. The 8-hour course is held in the training rooms of the Polo Tecnologico Lucchese center or, on request, at customer’s office. In order to improve theaching, we find useful to use the tools made available by the ERTLab Studio software (the image in this page is a good example for this).
Course program
Survey design
- Brief introduction to instruments for carrying out electrical resistivity measurements: operating principles (characteristics of current / voltage generators and voltmeters, details on multi-channel devices); setup of the main acquisition parameters (energization time, stacking, delay time and sampling windows for IP measurements).
- Sequence generation: description of the main 2D and 3D arrays (Wenner, Schlumberger, dipole-dipole, pole-dipole, gradient, pole-pole) and methods for the generation of standard and complex quadripolar sequences.
- Strategies for optimizing logistics and productivity based on the working context and the field devices: design of the electrode geometries to reduce acquisition time, sequence optimization based on the expected Vmn signal and the depth of investigation to be achieved.
- Acquisition and data quality control during the survey.
Data processing
- Theoretical aspects of ERT data processing: how inversion algorithms work.
- Data quality control through graphic visualization: pseudo-sections, pseudo-maps, statistical analysis and histograms, cross-plot for the comparison of the acquired parameters.
- Measurement pre-processing: control of electrodes with bad coupling, filtering of data on the basis of the different parameters, reciprocals check..
- Configuration parameters for the inversion: topography, mesh and resolution, starting models, data noise estimates, smoothness constraints.
- Processing sessions of 2D/3D measurements: progress of the inversion, analysis of the models resulting from the processing, strategies to improve data processing.