Use of Ground Penetrating Radar for Construction Quality Assurance of Concrete Pavement

Extracting concrete cores is the most common method for measuring the thickness of concrete pavement for construction quality control. Although this method provides a relatively accurate thickness measurement, it is destructive, labor intensive, and time consuming. Moreover, concrete cores are usually taken approximately every 750 ft, which may be inadequate for estimating the actual thickness profile of a pavement section; however extracting more cores would damage the pavement extensively and increase the labor cost and time excessively. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) is a well-established technique for subsurface exploration. Recently, GPR has been used for several transportation applications, such as measuring layer thickness in asphalt pavement, locating reinforcing bars and tendons, and detecting deteriorations and anomalies in concrete structures. The main advantages of GPR are speed, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness when scans are conducted on large areas. The objective of this project is to investigate the accuracy and cost-effectiveness of using GPR for measuring the thickness of concrete pavement for quality assurance purposes. The GPR systems GSSI SIR20 and SIR3000 with a high resolution 1.6 MHz ground coupled antenna were used in measuring the thickness of concrete pavement up to 14 inch thick. Several laboratory and field tests have been carried out to determine the accuracy of the GPR measurement at different concrete ages and when various metal artifacts are used underneath the concrete to improve the reflectivity of the bottom surface. Testing results have indicated that GPR is a cost-effective non-destructive technique for measuring the thickness of concrete pavement, compared to extracting concrete cores, and an accuracy of 1/8 in can be achieved when appropriate reflectors and calibration cores are used.

• Record URL:
  https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/ndor/index.3.html
• 
• Record URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/24741
• Corporate Authors:

  University of Nebraska, Omaha

  Construction Engineering and Management
  1110 South 67th Street
  Omaha, NE  United States  68182-0571

  Nebraska Department of Roads

  1500 Highway 2, P.O. Box 94759
  Lincoln, NE  United States  68509

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Morcous, George
  • Erdogmus, Ece
• Publication Date: 2009-11

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Edition: Final Report
• Features: Appendices; Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 70p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Concrete pavements; Cost effectiveness; Ground penetrating radar; Measurement; Nondestructive tests; Quality assurance; Thickness
• Subject Areas: Construction; Highways; Pavements; I52: Construction of Pavements and Surfacings;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01148575
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: P307
• Files: NTL, TRIS, USDOT, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Jan 25 2010 8:09AM