A Geoelectrical Forward Problem

Application ID: 9636


The classical forward problem of geoelectrics (includes electrical resistivity tomography, ERT and earlier techniques as vertical electric sounding, VES) is the calculation of potentials at a given set of electrodes (M,N) while current is injected at other electrodes (A,B) into the ground.

Typically the physical domain (earth) is unbounded to the sides and the bottom because of which one needs to care for modeling infinity at the computational domains.

This model describes the 3D ERT forward problem for 25 electrodes in a homogeneous ground of 100 Ohm-m and compares it to the analytical solution. An extension covers the switching of electrode configurations and the calculation of sensitivity.

This model example illustrates applications of this type that would nominally be built using the following products: