Method for the estimation of soil structure in the vicinity of a grounding system

This study presents a method for the estimation of soil structure based on genetic algorithm (GA), which can reveal actual soil structures through the experimental curve of apparent resistivity that was measured near the ground grid. GA involves the use of the errors produced by the experimental and theoretical curve of soil apparent resistivity to achieve soil structure optimisation. In this study, new soil structures were generated by GA, and finite element method (FEM) was used to compute the theoretical curve of apparent resistivity under these soil structures. The relative position of ground grid and the measurement profiles was considered in FEM, which can reveal the true measurement site. Compared with present methods, the proposed method that combines FEM and GA can adapt to a solution domain of complex geometry shape while ground grid and soil exist simultaneously. Thus, the proposed method can handle the experimental curve which is influenced by the grounding system. In addition, the solution accuracy of the soil parameters was reasonably established and thus allowed the algorithm to exhibit convergence within 50 generations.