EXPERIMENTAL-NUMERICAL RESISTIVITY MEASUREMENTS APPROACH FOR CHARACTERIZATION IN STRUCTURAL TIMBER

Abstract

This paper deals with an experimental and numerical approach to adapt resistivity measurements, usually developed in geophysics, for the in-situ monitoring of moisture content in structural timber. This method leads to identifying timber resistivity fields, in relation to moisture content, by crosschecking the current lines injected by electrodes connected to the reachable surfaces of the investigated timber element. More precisely, it is composed of the inversion of a numerical model of electrical current injection implemented in a finite element software, through a method to minimize the error between simulation and measurements. For starters, the direct model reproduces the physical measurement: the current injection and potential difference measurement from an electrical quadrupole. Next, the inversion algorithm reconstructs the timber resistivity field from the measured resistivity data.