Reliability Analysis of Ground-Penetrating Radar for the Detection of Subsurface Delamination
Publication: Journal of Bridge Engineering
Volume 23, Issue 2
Abstract
This article reports on research to experimentally analyze the reliability of ground-coupled ground-penetrating radar (GPR) for the detection and imaging of subsurface delamination in concrete. Experimental studies were conducted that included a RC deck mock-up with synthetic delamination targets and two highway bridge decks. Both of the bridge decks had areas of delamination as determined through sounding, infrared thermography, and some limited physical sampling. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis was used to evaluate the reliability of GPR when implemented using the procedure described in the current ASTM standard that employs signal reflections from uppermost steel bars. The overall results indicate that GPR had limited ability to detect and image areas of delamination in concrete using the aforementioned ASTM procedure. After almost four decades of implementation of GPR for the condition assessment of concrete bridge decks, confusion remains regarding the ability of GPR to directly detect areas of delamination. The findings from this research should make an important contribution to clarifying this issue to improve decision making for maintenance and repair when considering GPR as a condition assessment tool.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
AASHTO. (2013). Manual for bridge element inspection, Washington, DC.
Annan, A. P. (2004). Ground penetrating radar: Principles, procedures and applications, Sensors & Software, Mississauga, ON, Canada.
ASTM. (2015). “Standard test method for evaluating asphalt-covered concrete bridge decks using ground penetrating radar.” D6087-08(2015)e1, West Conshohocken, PA.
Barnes, C., and Trottier, J. (2000). “Effectiveness of ground penetrating radar for preparing pre-tender deterioration estimates on asphalt covered reinforced concrete bridge decks.” Proc., Structural Materials Technology IV, Technomic, Lancaster, PA, 47–52.
Barnes, C., and Trottier, J.-F. (2002). “Phenomena and conditions in bridge decks that confound ground-penetrating radar data analysis.” Transp. Res. Rec., 1795, 57–61.
Barnes, C. L., and Trottier, J.-F. (2004). “Effectiveness of ground penetrating radar in predicting deck repair quantities.” J. Infrastruct. Syst., 69–76.
Barnes, C. L., Trottier, J.-F., and Forgeron, D. (2008). “Improved concrete bridge deck evaluation using GPR by accounting for signal depth–amplitude effects.” NDT and E. Int., 41(6), 427–433.
Clemeña, G. G. (1993). “The use of ground-penetrating radar in the surveying of overlaid bridge decks.” Rep. No. FHWA/VA-93-R20, Virginia Dept. of Transportation, Richmond, VA.
Dinh, K., Zayed, T., Romero, F., and Tarussov, A. (2015). “Method for analyzing time-series GPR data of concrete bridge decks.” J. Bridge Eng., 04014086.
Fawcett, T. (2004). “ROC graphs: Notes and practical considerations for researchers.” Mach. Learn., 31(1), 1–38.
Fawcett, T. (2006). “An introduction to ROC analysis.” Pattern Recognit. Lett., 27(8), 861–874.
Gucunski, N. (2013). Nondestructive testing to identify concrete bridge deck deterioration, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC.
Hanley, J. A., and McNeil, B. J. (1982). “The meaning and use of the area under a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve.” Radiol., 143(1), 29–36.
He, X.-Q., Zhu, Z.-Q., Liu, Q.-Y., and Lu, G.-Y. (2009). “Review of GPR rebar detection.” Proc., Progress in Electromagnetics Research Symp., Electromagnetics Academy, Cambridge, MA, 804–813.
Kim, W., Ismail, A., Anderson, N. L., Atekwana, E. A., and Buccellato, A. (2003). “Non-destructive testing (NDT) for corrosion in bridge decks using GPR.” Proc., 3rd Int. Conf. on Applied Geophysics, Univ. of Missouri, Rolla, MO.
Martino, N., Maser, K. R., Birken, R., and Wang, M. (2014). “Determining ground penetrating radar amplitude thresholds for the corrosion state of reinforced concrete bridge decks.” J. Environ. Eng. Geophys., 19(3), 175–181.
Maser, K. R., and Roddis, W. M. K. (1990). “Principles of thermography and radar for bridge deck assessment.” J. Transp. Eng., 583–601.
Metz, C. E. (2006). “Receiver operating characteristic analysis: A tool for the quantitative evaluation of observer performance and imaging systems.” J. Am. Coll. Radiol., 3(6), 413–422.
RADAN 7 [Computer software]. GSSI, Nashua, NH.
Rhazi, J. (2011). “Test method for evaluating asphalt-covered concrete bridge decks using ground penetrating radar.” Proc., Progress in Electromagnetics Research Symp., Electromagnetics Academy, Cambridge, MA, 1790–1793.
Robison, T. W., and Tanner, J. E. (2012). Bridge deck evaluation using non-destructive test methods, State of Wyoming.
Romero, F. A., Barnes, C. L., Azari, H., Nazarian, S., and Rascoe, C. D. (2015). “Validation of benefits of automated depth correction method.” Transp. Res. Rec., 2522, 100–109.
Russell, H. G. (2004). NCHRP synthesis 333: Concrete bridge deck performance, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC.
Scott, M., et al. (2003). “A comparison of nondestructive evaluation methods for bridge deck assessment.” NDT and E. Int., 36(4), 245–255.
Scott, M., Rezaizadeh, A., and Moore, M. (2001). “Phenomenology study of HERMES ground-penetrating radar technology for detection and identification of common bridge deck features.” Rep. No. FHWA-RD-01-090, Office of Infrastructure Research and Development, Federal Highway Administration, McLean, VA.
Shin, H., and Grivas, D. (2003). “How accurate is ground-penetrating radar for bridge deck condition assessment?” Transp. Res. Rec., 1845(1), 139–147.
Tarussov, A., Vandry, M., and De La Haza, A. (2013). “Condition assessment of concrete structures using a new analysis method: Ground-penetrating radar computer-assisted visual interpretation.” Constr. Build. Mater., 38, 1246–1254.
Wamweya, A. (2009). “Application of ground penetrating radar (GPR) for bridge deck condition assessment: Using a 1.5 GHz ground-coupled antenna.” M.S. thesis, Dept. of Geosciences Engineering, Missouri Univ. of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO.
Winn, E. K., and Burgueño, R. (2013). “Development and validation of deterioration models for concrete bridge decks—Phase 1: Artificial intelligence models and bridge management system.” Rep. No. RC-1587a, Michigan Dept. of Transportation, Lansing, MI.
Yehia, S., Abudayyeh, O., Abdel-Qader, I., and Zalt, A. (2008). “Ground-penetrating radar, chain drag, and ground truth: Correlation of bridge deck assessment data.” Transp. Res. Rec., 2044, 39–50.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 18, 2016
Accepted: Aug 7, 2017
Published online: Nov 28, 2017
Published in print: Feb 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Apr 28, 2018
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.