Investigation of the Extended Use of GPR (Ground Penetration Radar) for Measuring in-situ Material Quality Characteristics

Ground Penetration Radar (GPR) has been successfully used to measure pavement thicknesses greater than two inches at highway speeds. However, only until recently has the ability to measure pavement layer thicknesses less than two inches been possible with the advent of the 2.2 GHz. antennas. This study intends to focus on ground penetrating radar's ability to accurately measure any flexible pavement layer thickness at highway speeds. If ground penetrating radar proves to be a viable non-destructive pavement layer thickness testing device that can be deployed at highway speeds, then thought should be given to revise the current pavement layer thickness testing specification. In addition to using ground penetrating radar to measure pavement layer thicknesses, other applications to measure in-situ material quality characteristics will be explored. If the results are promising, using GPR to measure material quality has the following advantages over the tradition methods: No cores are required because it is a non-destructive method. By continuously monitoring, the GPR can obtain complete pavement quality information compared to cores. The complete pavement quality data obtained by GPR is able to better capture material quality variations.