A new geophysical exploration method based on electrical resistivity to detect underground utility lines and geological anomalies: Theory and field demonstrations

Although ground investigation had carried out prior to the construction, many problems have arisen during the civil-engineering works because of the presence of the unexpected underground utility lines or anomalies. In this study, a new geophysical exploration method was developed to solve those problems by improving and supplementing the existing methods. This new method was based on the difference of electrical resistance values between anomalies and surrounding ground medium. A theoretical expression was suggested to define the characteristics of the anomalies such as location, size and direction, by applying the electric field analysis. An inverse analysis algorithm was also developed to solve the theoretical expression using the measured electrical resistance values which were generated by the voltage flowing the subsurface medium. To verify the developed method, field applications were conducted at the sites under construction or planned. From the results of the field tests, it was found that not only the new method was more predictive than the existing methods, but its results were good agreed with the measured ones. Therefore, it is expected that application of the new exploration method reduces the unexpected accidents caused by the underground uncertainties during the underground construction works.