Ground penetrating radar in civil engineering application: Case study of multistorey building foundation site to maping subsurface features at the center of karbala governorate, Iraq

Abstract

The reconstruction of holy shrines and religious places in Iraq was developed after 2003. At the same time, some geotechnical problems are urgently waiting to be solved. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) is a noninvasive technology that has many applications including subsurface geology, archeology, engineering and environmental studies. It is very effective in solving some engineering and geological problems and detecting buried objects under the ground and helping to map subsurface geological structures, subsurface soil conditions and groundwater contaminants. This paper demonstrates the utility of using GPR for mapping and locating subsurface features of multistorey building foundation site at the center Karbala district, Karbala governorate. A series of GPR profiles were acquired on a proposed multistory building site GPR survey has been carried out along fifteen profiles, ten longitudinal parallel profiles and the other profiles are transversal. In this study different antennas were chosen to conduct the survey, the antenna frequencies of 450 MHz and 750 MHz were used. The data were performed by using a commercial GPR system A MALÅ ProEx System™ from MALA Geoscience and we are using RadExplorer software for processing the data. The profiles reflect a lot of subsurface features. Most of the main subsurface features anomalies due to weak zones. These zones spreading in the front and especially in the center of a building starts from under the foundation to a depth of approximately six m. The water table depth at the site was defined from GPR radargrams at a depth of (2.7 and 3.5 m). Through years of practical experience with GPR surveys, we have summed up a suitable technique to solve various engineering and geotechnical engineering problems with GPR in Iraq.