Condition Assessment of Transportation Infrastructure Using Ground-Penetrating Radar

Abstract

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) technology has been applied to the evaluation of pavements, bridge decks, abutments, piers, and other constructed facilities to assess as-built conditions and to evaluate damage and deterioration that develops over time. Two basic types of GPR equipment systems are used depending on the type of antenna employed: either ground-coupled antennas or air-coupled horn antennas. Ground-coupled equipment is most suitable for deeper penetrations and for object detection, and where survey speed is not critical. Horn antenna equipment is most suited for driving speed measurements, and where quantitative high resolution results are required. To evaluate the data, two types of data processing are employed: (1) qualitative assessments and manual calculations from graphically displayed data, which is most suited to site-specific evaluations; and (2) automated processing of the raw radar waveforms, which is most suited to production surveys such as pavements and bridge decks. In some applic...