Effect of Soil Cracking on 2D Electrical Resistivity Measurements

Soil cracks affect the engineering properties and behaviour of natural and engineered earth structures, and are known to contribute to slope failures. In practice, measurement of soil cracking has largely been limited to measuring crack geometries at the soil surface. In the current work, the non-invasive 2D electrical resistivity tomography method is adopted to identify the effect of cracking on soil resistivity. Horizontal resistivity profiles and 2D resistivity sections of Wenner array are used. As the resistivity of air filled cracks is significantly higher than the intact soil, cracks deviate the resistivity distribution of the soil. The high resistivity contrast between the cracks and the surrounding soil can be used to identify cracking in soil which is of a great importance in geoengineering studies, which has been hampered by the lack of non-invasive technique that can monitor cracking dynamics.