Induced polarization tomography applied to the detection and the monitoring of leaks in embankments

Abdulsamad, F.; Revil, A.; Ahmed, A. Soueid; Coperey, Antoine; Karaoulis, M.; Nicaise, Sylvie; Peyras, Laurent

doi:10.1016/j.enggeo.2019.04.001

Cited by 44 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Initially developed for mineral exploration (e.g., Van Voorhis et al, 1973), induced polarization has then been recently used for environmental applications (Binley et al, 2005(Binley et al, , 2015. Recent applications include the study of leakage detections in embankments and dams (Abdulsamad et al, 2019;Martínez-Moreno et al, 2018) and the study of contaminated areas (Sogade et al, 2006;Binley et al, 2015). To the best of our knowledge, induced polarization has never been used to study the water content of rammed earth materials.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Complex conductivity of rammed earth

Abdulsamad

Revil

Prime

et al. 2020

Engineering Geology

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Searching for recyclable materials of construction, in the objective of building sobriety and resilience, is a major issue of our current societies. Mudbricks of compacted rammed earth represent an ancient construction material with many advantages associated with its availability, cost of production, potential reuse, and with a very low carbon footprint. Moisture content affects the mechanical resistance of such materials, which could become mechanically weak above a critical value. Therefore, non-intrusive characterization techniques able to image the water content distribution of these materials is highly in demand. We apply a recently developed theory of complex electrical conductivity (alias induced polarization) to characterize core samples of rammed earth materials in the laboratory. Complex conductivity describes both the ability of a porous material to conduct an electrical current (characterized by the in-phase conductivity) and its ability to store reversibly electrical charges (characterized by two interconnected properties namely the quadrature conductivity and the normalized chargeability). Samples of rammed earth and clayey soils with different pore water salinities, saturations, and compaction states are measured with the complex conductivity method in the frequency range 100 mHz-45 kHz. The in-phase and quadrature conductivities of the complex conductivity of rammed earth are connected to the water content offering therefore a new non-intrusive tomographic technique to study the water content distribution in walls made of rammed earth. The data are all consistent with the so-called dynamic Stern layer model of complex conductivity for clayey materials. This new approach provides a general method to image the change in the water content of walls made of rammed earth, a task that electrical conductivity imaging cannot perform as a stand-alone technique.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Complex conductivity of rammed earth

Abdulsamad

Revil

Prime

et al. 2020

Engineering Geology

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“…The relevant conductivity for a self-potential survey is the DC conductivity. (Modified from Abdulsamad et al, 2019) 10.1029/2020JB019738…”

Section: Inversion Of Self-potential Anomaliesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self‐Potential Tomography of a Deep‐Sea Polymetallic Sulfide Deposit on Southwest Indian Ridge

et al. 2020

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Deep-sea polymetallic sulfides associated with hydrothermal systems are considered a potential viable resource for base and precious metals. The Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR, Indian Ocean) hosts active and inactive hydrothermal systems. Inactive hydrothermal fields are more abundant than active fields but are difficult to remotely characterize. We report a deep-sea self-potential investigation to locate inactive ore deposits at the Yuhuang hydrothermal field on the ultraslow-spreading SWIR. A horizontal array of six nonpolarizing AgCl electrodes are attached to a deep-towed transient electromagnetic system to record the electrical field at a height of 40 m above the seafloor. The observed electrical field strength near a previously recognized sulfide deposits (verified by drilling) reaches an amplitude of 0.5 mV/m. Negative self-potential anomalies (~−27 mV) were observed by integrating the measured electrical field. The high electrical conductivities (up to 12 S/m) of sulfide samples measured in the laboratory and the oxidized sulfides recovered from the surface of the deposit suggest that the self-potential anomalies are due to sulfide mineralization and corrosion of the polymetallic sulfides. Inversion of the self-potential data reveals a localized body with a thickness of~65 m, which is interpreted as the Yuhuang ore deposit. Our field data demonstrate that the self-potential method is a useful exploration method to identify and image seafloor massive sulfide deposits hosted in inactive hydrothermal fields at mid-ocean ridges.

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“…The induced polarization method is an extension of the resistivity method as it provides, in addition to the electrical resistivity distribution, an additional properties characterizing the ability of porous media to store electrical charges under the application of a primary electrical field. Induced polarization has recently been applied to detect seepages in Earth dams by monitoring the change in the water content over time (Abdulsamad et al, 2019). Both resistivity and induced polarization are active geoelectrical methods for which an electrical current is injected in the ground.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determination of the permeability of seepage flow paths in dams from self-potential measurements

Ahmed

Revil

Bolève

et al. 2020

Engineering Geology

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The flow of the pore water in porous media generates an electrical current known as the streaming current. This current is due to the drag of the excess of charge contained in the electrical diffuse layer coating the surface of the grains. This current is associated with an electric field called the streaming potential field. The fluctuations of this field can be remotely measured using a set of non-polarizable electrodes located at the ground surface or in wells and a sensitive voltmeter. The self-potential method (SP) aims at passively measuring the streaming potential anomalies associated with ground water flow. We present a stochastic numerical framework for inverting self-potential data in order to localize seepages in dams and characterize their permeability and Darcy velocity. Our approach is based on the use of Markov chains Monte Carlo (McMC) method for solving the inverse problem. We performed first a validation of the method on a synthetic case study and then on large-scale field surveys on three different dams. Our approach is successful in localizing seepages and determining their permeability. A sensitivity study is performed on each of these three dams to better define the hydraulic and electrical parameters influencing the self-potential signal and the uncertainties associated with the estimation of those parameters. Our results show that the self-potential method can provide quantitative hydrogeological information for the characterization of seepages in dams and dikes.

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Induced polarization tomography applied to the detection and the monitoring of leaks in embankments

Cited by 44 publications

References 43 publications

Complex conductivity of rammed earth

Complex conductivity of rammed earth

Self‐Potential Tomography of a Deep‐Sea Polymetallic Sulfide Deposit on Southwest Indian Ridge

Determination of the permeability of seepage flow paths in dams from self-potential measurements

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