Galerkin boundary element method for the forward problem of ERT

Electrical resistance tomography (ERT) is a novel non-intrusive method that determines the cross-sectional electric conductivity distribution. Currently, the ERT forward problem solvers are mainly based on a finite element method, which require a large number of mesh elements. A Galerkin boundary element method (GBEM) is presented for the ERT forward problem in both 2D and 3D. The complete electrode model is adopted. The contact resistivity of electrodes is measured by rectangular cells of different lengths, as well as the conductivity of the background medium. GBEM formulations solving the multi-domain problems are derived. Numerical results show that the method has a better performance on precision compared by both the finite element method and the collocation boundary element method.