Technical Papers
Jul 30, 2012

Development of High-Speed Ultrawideband Ground-Penetrating Radar for Rebar Detection

Publication: Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 139, Issue 3

Abstract

This paper describes the development of new air-coupled ultrawideband ground-penetrating radar (GPR) for highway pavement and bridge deck inspections that can achieve high spatial resolution and high inspection performance while operating on vehicles driving at regular highway speeds. The major design features include dual-frequency band operation, 8 gigasamples per second high-speed real-time data acquisition, high-speed large volume data transmission and storage, and customized signal-processing algorithms for GPR image enhancement and feature extractions. For design validations, steel reinforcing bar detection experiments in various setups are conducted. The measurement results show good agreement with the subsurface feature configurations.

Get full access to this article

View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by U.S. Department of Transportation Grant No. DTOS5908G00102 and U.S. National Institutes of Standards and Technology Cooperative Agreement No. 70NANB9H9012, with Northeastern University and Ming Wang as the principal investigator.

References

Al-Qadi, I. L., Lahouar, S., and Jiang, K. (2004). “Measuring rebar cover-depth in rigid pavements using GPR.” Structural Materials Technology VI NDT Conf., S. Alampalli and G. Washer, eds., American Society of Nondestructive Testing, Columbus, OH.
Borgioli, G., Capineri, L., Falorni, P., Mattucci, S., and Windsor, C. G. (2008). “The detection of buried pipes from time-of-flight radar data.” IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., 46(8), 2254–2266.
Canny, J. (1986). “A computational approach to edge detection.” IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell., 8(6), 679–698.
Chang, C. W., Lin, C. H., and Lien, H. S. (2009). “Measurement radius of reinforcing steel bar in concrete using digital image GPR.” Constr. Build. Mater., 23(2), 1057–1063.
Daniels, D. J. (2004). Ground penetrating radar, 2nd Ed., Institute of Electrical Engineers, London.
Dérobert, X., Iaquinta, J., Klysz, G., and Balayssac, J.-P. (2008). “Use of capacitive and GPR techniques for the non-destructive evaluation of cover concrete.” NDT & E Int., 41(1), 44–52.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC). (2002). “Revision of Part 15 of the Commision’s rules regarding ultra-wideband transmission systems.” FCC 02-48, Washington, DC.
Gan, L., Zhou, L., You, X. (2011). “The time-frequency analysis of equivalent-time sampling GPR signal based on HHT.” Int. Conf. on Computational and Information Sciences (ICCIS), IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, 929–932.
Halabe, U. B., Maser, K. R., and Kausel, E. A. (1995). “Condition assessment of reinforced concrete structures using electromagnetic waves.” ACI Mater. J., 92(5), 511–523.
Huston, D. (2011). Structural sensing health monitoring and performance evaluation, CRC, Boca Raton, FL, 117.
Huston, D. R., Hu, J. Q., Maser, K., Weedon, W., and Adam, C. (2000). “GIMA ground penetrating radar system for infrastructure health monitoring.” J. Appl. Geophys., 43(2–4), 139–146.
Johansson, E. M., and Mast, J. E. (1994). “Three-dimensional ground penetrating radar imaging using synthetic aperture time-domain focusing.” SPIE Proc., S. Udpa and H. Han, eds., 2275, 205–524.
Jol, H. M. (2009). Ground penetrating radar theory and applications, Elsevier, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Kim, Y. J., Jofre, L., De Flaviis, F., and Feng, M. Q. (2004). “Microwave subsurface imaging technology for damage detection.” J. Eng. Mech., 130(7), 858–866.
Olhoeft, G. R. (2000). “Maximizing the information return from ground penetrating radar.” J. Appl. Geophys., 43(2–4), 175–187.
Pasolli, E., Melgani, F., and Donelli, M. (2009). “Automatic analysis of GPR images: A pattern-recognition approach.” IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., 47(7), 2206–2217.
Roqueta, G., Jofre, L., and Feng, M. Q. (2012). “Analysis of the electromagnetic signature of reinforced concrete structures for nondestructive evaluation of corrosion damage.” IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas., 61(4), 1090–1098.
Shaw, M. R., Molyneaux, T. C. K., Millard, S. G., Taylor, T. J., and Bungey, J. H. (2003). “Assessing bar size of steel reinforcement in concrete using ground penetrating radar and neural networks.” Insight Non-Destr. Test. Cond. Monit., 45(12), 813–816.
Shihab, S., and Al-Nuaimy, W. (2005). “Radius estimation for cylindrical objects detected by ground penetrating radar.” Subsurf. Sens. Technol. Applic., 6(2), 151–166.
Uddin, W. (2006). “Ground penetrating radar study—Phase I: Technology review and evaluation.” FHWA/MS-DOT-RD-06-182, Federal Highway Administration, Washington, DC.
van Kempen, L., Sahli, H., Brooks, J., and Cornelis, J. (2000). “New results on clutter reduction and parameter estimation for landmine detection using GPR.” Proc., 8th Int. Conf. on Ground Penetrating Radar, Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers, Bellingham, WA, 872–879.
Wang, Z. W., Zhou, M., Slabaugh, G. G., Zhai, J., and Fang, T. (2011). “Automatic detection of bridge deck condition from ground penetrating radar images.” IEEE Trans. Autom. Sci. Eng., 8(3), 633–640.
Xia, T., Venkatachalam, A. S., and Huston, D. (2012). “A high performance low ringing ultra-wideband monocycle pulse generator.” IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas., 61(1), 261–266.
Yang, J. (2011). “The research of detection of the underground pipe’s diameter based on GPR.” M.S. thesis, China Univ. of Mining and Technology, Beijing, 31–33.

Information & Authors

Information

Published In

Go to Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 139Issue 3March 2013
Pages: 272 - 285

History

Received: Nov 1, 2011
Accepted: Jul 9, 2012
Published online: Jul 30, 2012
Published in print: Mar 1, 2013

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Authors

Affiliations

Visiting Graduate Student, School of Engineering, Univ. of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405. E-mail: [email protected]
Associate Professor, School of Engineering, Univ. of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405. E-mail: [email protected]
Anbu Venkatachalam [email protected]
Graduate Student, School of Engineering, Univ. of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405. E-mail: [email protected]
Dryver Huston, M.ASCE [email protected]
Professor, School of Engineering, Univ. of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405 (corresponding author). E-mail: [email protected]

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.

Cited by

View Options

Get Access

Access content

Please select your options to get access

Log in/Register Log in via your institution (Shibboleth)
ASCE Members: Please log in to see member pricing

Purchase

Save for later Information on ASCE Library Cards
ASCE Library Cards let you download journal articles, proceedings papers, and available book chapters across the entire ASCE Library platform. ASCE Library Cards remain active for 24 months or until all downloads are used. Note: This content will be debited as one download at time of checkout.

Terms of Use: ASCE Library Cards are for individual, personal use only. Reselling, republishing, or forwarding the materials to libraries or reading rooms is prohibited.
ASCE Library Card (5 downloads)
$105.00
Add to cart
ASCE Library Card (20 downloads)
$280.00
Add to cart
Buy Single Article
$35.00
Add to cart

Get Access

Access content

Please select your options to get access

Log in/Register Log in via your institution (Shibboleth)
ASCE Members: Please log in to see member pricing

Purchase

Save for later Information on ASCE Library Cards
ASCE Library Cards let you download journal articles, proceedings papers, and available book chapters across the entire ASCE Library platform. ASCE Library Cards remain active for 24 months or until all downloads are used. Note: This content will be debited as one download at time of checkout.

Terms of Use: ASCE Library Cards are for individual, personal use only. Reselling, republishing, or forwarding the materials to libraries or reading rooms is prohibited.
ASCE Library Card (5 downloads)
$105.00
Add to cart
ASCE Library Card (20 downloads)
$280.00
Add to cart
Buy Single Article
$35.00
Add to cart

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

Share

Share

Copy the content Link

Share with email

Email a colleague

Share