The use of ground penetrating radar to assess the concrete

Abstract

Ground Penetration Radar (GPR) is a modern and promising geophysical technique for near-subsurface exploring and observing because of its characteristic working scheme (instantaneous underground radargram displaying and subsurface features preserving during the detection tests). In this technique a very high and/ or ultra-high electromagnetic radiation frequencies were utilized to be transmitted to the targeted underground area, then the reflected ones which occur because of the sudden changes in the medium electric properties or texture would be recorded and processed to achieve the final GPR radargram. The main goal of this study is to find out the GPR radiation extension which is suitable for concrete or rebar tiling identifying and measuring in addition to discover the cracks in the concrete walls, the minor goal is studying the effect of GPR device parameters changing on produced radar imagery and identifying the most effective parameter settings for concrete buildings cornerstone locating and wall cracks detection. These parameters are (radiation phase velocity m/sec., frequency coding or sampling, time windows in nano sec., and background removal for unwanted layers removing). The study executed using 1000 MHz antenna on 12 paths and clearly showed that the most important filter/ and or parameter in concrete sites locating and mapping is the "background removal" filter, while other parameters were image improvement ones or sometimes had a negative role in detection procedure.