Design and construction of a resistivity meter for shallow investigation

Awotoye, K S; Selemo, A. O. I.

doi:10.4314/njphy.v18i2.38113

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The Several other authors have developed and tested low-cost DC resistivity meters with varying degrees of success and applicability [14][15][16][17][18]. Many of these designs primarily were tested and used in a laboratory environment [16].…”

Section: Toward Low-cost Geophysical Instrumentationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some designs include multi-channel and automatic acquisition systems [17,18], use difficult to find components that require international shipping, as well as being challenging to build by unfamiliar users. While other designs have been used successfully to acquire field data appropriate for ultra-shallow surveying [14,15], none are as widely used as the CP2011 system [12].…”

Section: Toward Low-cost Geophysical Instrumentationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Development and validation of a low-cost direct current resistivity meter for humanitarian geophysics applications

Sirota¹

2022

GEOPHYSICS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Insufficient access to safe drinking water is one of the most challenging global humanitarian issues. The development of low-cost microcontrollers and the widespread availability of cheap electronics components raise the possibility of developing and using low-cost geophysical instrumentation with open-source designs and software solutions to circumvent geophysical instrumentation capital cost issues. To these ends, we alter an existing low-cost DC resistivity meter design and develop an optional modular Raspberry Pi data-logging system to improve the unit's functionality, usability and to ensure data integrity. Numerical modeling and physical testing demonstrates that the system is more robust than previously published low-cost designs and works in a more diverse range of geological scenarios - especially conductive environments. Our instrument was tested in a Geoscientists Without Borders (GWB) project jointly run between researchers from Colorado School of Mines (CSM) and Universit矤'Abomey-Calavi (UAC), Cotonou, Benin. A key project component involved CSM and UAC students constructing and validating two low-cost DC resistivity meters and then using these instruments for fieldwork aimed at better characterizing and monitoring the health of a local aquifer used as a groundwater source for communities in the Cotonou region. The low-cost instruments were successfully used alongside a commercial resistivity meter to acquire data for 2D inversion of aquifer hydrostratigraphy , indicating the presence of a clay-sand contact. The cost of the redesigned instrument and data logger respectively are $177 and $108 (in 2021 USD) with future cost reductions possible, which are fractions of the price of commercial resistivity meters.

show abstract