Evaluation of bridge decks and pavements at highway speed using ground-penetrating radar: Fid-Bau Portal

Evaluation of bridge decks and pavements at highway speed using ground-penetrating radar

Maser, Kenneth R.

Ground penetrating radar has been developed as an economical alternative for evaluating pavement layer properties and estimating quantities of deterioration in bridge decks. These highway applications are based on the use of vehicle-mounted radar systems traveling at normal driving speed. Surveys are conducted without lane closures, and extensive coverage can be obtained in a short survey period. Customized software has been specifically developed to handle and interpret the large quantities of data collected by this system. Two integrated software systems have been developed and extensively tested for pavement layer thickness and bridge deck condition evaluation. PAVLAYER, for pavements, has demonstrated an accuracy of +/- 7% for asphalt layer thickness evaluation based on tests on 150 pavement sections and correlation with over 700 cores. DECAR, for evaluating quantities of deteriorated concrete in bridge decks, has demonstrated an accuracy of +/- 4.4% of the total deck area based on ground truth evaluation of 64 bridge decks. The paper describes the details of the hardware and software components and the analytic methods used in these two systems. Also presented are descriptions of three field evaluation programs, in which the PAVLAYER and DECAR results are correlated with ground truth. Typical output and ground truth correlations are presented.