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TECHNICAL NOTE
In order to investigate changes in porosity in saturated On a créé une sonde à résistivité électrique pour les
silica sand, an electrical resistivity probe for physical essais sur modèle physique, afin d’examiner les variations
model testing was developed. For non-conducting parti- de porosité survenant dans le sable de silice saturé. Pour
cles, electrical resistivity measurements in porous media des particules non conductrices, les mesures de résistivité
actually measure the resistivity of the pore water, changes électrique permettent de mesurer la résistivité de l’eau
of which are directly related to porosity change. The interstitielle, dont les variations sont en rapport direct
sensor has been integrated in a measurement probe and avec les changements de porosité. Le capteur a été
a model pile to measure density changes continuously intégré dans une sonde de mesure et un modèle de pieu
during penetration. This first implementation used in the de façon à mesurer en continu les changements de
geotechnical centrifuge shows the feasibility of the densité survenant au cours de la pénétration. Cette
method, although the initial results also show some sys- première réalisation utilisée dans la centrifuge géotechni-
tematic errors resulting from the construction of the que démontre la faisabilité de cette méthode, même si les
probe and the measurement method itself. résultats initiaux fait état de certaines erreurs systéma-
tiques résultant de la structure de la sonde et de la
KEYWORDS: centrifuge modelling; laboratory equipment; piles; méthode de mesure proprement dite.
sands; soil/structure interaction
721
722 DIJKSTRA, BROERE AND VAN TOL
are generally unknown if resistivity measurements of a body the volume at which 50% of the charge is either inside or
of soil are taken. If these properties are lumped into the outside this volume, is also shown. The limited variation
calibration factor for the sensor, Ohm’s law reduces to the allows for the lumping of geometrical effects in a calibration
well-known form factor and at the same time ascertains that any measured
change in apparent resistivity is indicative of a density
V change near the probe. However, as the measurement method
R¼ (2)
I averages density change over its field of vision, local
changes on a smaller scale cannot be distinguished.
where R is resistance. It would be appropriate to name R the
apparent resistance and r apparent resistivity, as the true
resistivity is not measured. Actually, the apparent resistivity
is the mean resistivity of the sand particles and the pore Implementation
water. As pore water is a much better conductor, the In the measurement probe, shown in Fig. 3, a potential
resistivity is almost solely determined by the conductivity of field with constant current I is applied to the outer set of
the water and the amount of water in the pores. As a result, conductors vertically spaced at 10 mm. The inner set of
the resistivity measurement method can measure pore conductors, spaced 3.3 mm apart, is used to measure the
volume changes in saturated conditions, where any change voltage drop V within this section of the potential field. All
in pore volume results in a change in pore water volume conductors are made of 1.5 mm thick stainless steel rings
and subsequently in a change of the apparent resistivity. and are isolated from each other and the remainder of the
For proper calibration of the measurement technique the probe. Combined, I and V yield the apparent resistivity. An
size of the potential field, or the field of vision, should not electrical representation of the system is given in Fig. 4. The
change during penetration. In order to gain insight into the four conductors are represented as c1 –c4 : The current I is
stability of this field of vision for different soil permittiv- derived from the measurement of voltage Vc over a reference
ities, the Maxwell equations have been solved for the current resistor Rref , located in the power supply. The voltage drop
sensor design. The results in Fig. 2 show the potential field in the soil Vs is measured over c2 and c3 : It is assumed that
(V) in the soil at the level of the sensor as a function of the the contact resistance between conductors and soil Rc is
distance to the sensor. equal for all conductors. Regular checks of the contact
Four cases are studied resistance between the conductor and the connector did not
(a) a homogeneous medium dense, saturated sand layer show an appreciable change in contact resistance. The
(b) a fictive 15 mm thick zone of water directly next to the electrical isolation between the conductors was checked in a
probe (effectively a short circuit), followed by medium similar fashion; no internal short circuits were observed
dense sand during the tests series.
(c) a 15 mm wide zone of dense sand next to the probe The measurements are filtered with a 40 Hz Bessel low
(d ) a 15 mm wide zone of loose sand. pass filter for suppression of the 50 Hz interference from the
mains and sampled at 200 Hz using an HBM MgcPlus DAQ
These calculations present a limiting state, therefore the system with the HBM ML10B amplifier board. The soil
loose state corresponds to the maximum porosity, nmax , of apparent resistivity Rsoil is derived from Vs and Vc by
the Baskarp sand, the dense state to the minimum value for
the porosity, nmin , and the medium dense has been chosen as Vs Rref
a relative density of 50%. The field of vision, which defines Rsoil ¼ (3)
Vc
0·45
Only medium dense saturated sand
First 15 mm water ⫺ medium saturated sand
xfov;medium ⫽ 14·5 mm
0·40 First 15 mm dense ⫺ medium saturated sand
xfov;water ⫽ 16 mm
xfov;dense ⫽ 13·5 mm First 15 mm loose ⫺ medium saturated sand
0·35 xfov;loose ⫽ 15 mm
z
Water, loose or dense zone
0·30
Pile
Potential: V
0·25
x
0·20
Medium dense
0·15
0·10
0·05
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
x: mm
CCS c2 Rc
I ⫽ 1 mA Vs Rsoil
Uncertainties in the measurement method
f ⫽ 11 Hz c3 Differences in the observed sensitivity are due to system
Rc
errors in the set-up. Uncertainties resulting from the prepara-
c4 Rc tion, however, lead to an absolute shift of the measured
Rref resistivity. These errors are introduced by the soil prepara-
tion method where the sodium chloride concentration of the
Vc
water cannot be accurately controlled.
An absolute shift due to temperature changes on the
apparent resistivity reading by a 18C temperature change ˜T
Fig. 4. Electrical circuit of resistivity measurement set-up; CCS is would change conductivity by 2% (Schoemaker et al.,
constant current source
2007). Apart from the preparation related errors, the pre-
sented measurement method is also susceptible to a systema-
To ensure stability of the power supply a high output imped- tic error in the measured Rsoil : This error can be derived
ance, 1 mA regulated current source modulated at 11 Hz is from the error in the voltage readings Vs and Vc and the
used. The modulation is obtained by feeding a solid-state tolerance of the reference resistance Rref : Assuming a
relay with a periodic signal from a Hewlett Packard 3310B normal distribution of these errors it follows that
function generator. sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2 2 2
@ Rsoil @ Rsoil @ Rsoil
Rsoil ¼ Vs þ Vc þ Rref
@Vs @Vc @ Rref
Calibration
After assembly the prototype probe was calibrated in (4)
saturated Baskarp sand (properties in Table 1). De-aired tap For the current set-up Vs ¼ Vc ¼ 100 V. The tolerance of
water was used, in which approximately 1 g/l sodium chlor- the reference resistor is 0.3%, including estimated mechanical
ide (NaCl) was dissolved in order to increase the conductiv- (mainly solder joints) and temperature effects. This equates
ity of the water and thereby reducing the effects of to a typical value for the systematic error of +/0.5 . The
electrode–soil contact impedance and internal losses in the current sensing resistor was an ordinary metal film instead of
724 DIJKSTRA, BROERE AND VAN TOL
130 101 40
PVC Ril4
Linear fit; R2 ⫽ 0·9787 Acceleration
Apparent resistivity: Ω
Apparent resistivity: Ω
120
99 20
115
98 10
110
97 0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
105
0·38 0·39 0·40 0·41 0·42 0·43 0·44 0·45 0·46 Time: s
Porosity
(a) Fig. 6. Effect of centrifuge spin-up on apparent resistivity; initial
porosity n0 0.439
120
Nylon
115 Linear fit; R2 ⫽ 0·97778 preparation or spin-up in the geotechnical centrifuge is
mitigated. This shift converts all apparent resistivity meas-
urements to readings of porosity change, and not absolute
Apparent resistivity: Ω