Novel perspectives in bridges inspection using GPR

Abstract

Bridge engineers increasingly prefer to use the Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) technique. GPR can yield data with very high spatial resolution, the data can be acquired rapidly and even during traffic, causing very low interferences. This paper presents a novel GPR system that is designed and developed for bridge applications. In addition it proposes a new algorithm for cracks tracking in a three-dimensional domain. The effectiveness and accuracy of the procedure have been calibrated and validated on four different bridges. In this paper, three-dimensional visualisations of cracks and two-dimensional tomographies and sections are shown to demonstrate the potentialities of the GPR system associated to the signal-processing algorithm.

Keywords:

• bridges
• ground-penetrating radar
• pavement engineering
• bar corrosion, cracking