Imaging radar for bridge deck inspection

Conference · Thu Apr 13 04:00:00 EDT 1995

OSTI ID:100433

Warhus, J; Mast, J; Nelson, S

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)l is developing a prototype imaging radar for inspecting steel reinforced concrete bridge decks. The system is designed to acquire Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data and provide high-resolution images of internal structure, flaws, and defects enabling bridge inspectors to nondestructively evaluate and characterize bridge deck condition. Concrete delamination resulting from corrosion of steel reinforcing bars (rebars) is an important structural defect that the system is designed to detect. The prototype system uses arrays of compact, low-cost Micropower Impulse Radar (MIR) modules, supported by appropriate data acquisition and storage subsystems, to generate and collect the radar data, and unique imaging codes to reconstruct images of bridge deck internals. In this paper, we provide an overview of the prototype system concept, discuss its expected performance, and present recent experimental results showing the capability of this approach to detect thin delamination simulations embedded in concrete.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 100433
• Report Number(s): UCRL-JC--120901; CONF-9506126--5; ON: DE95015419
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
BRIDGES
CONCRETES
IMAGE PROCESSING
INSPECTION
REINFORCED MATERIALS
STEELS
SYNTHETIC-APERTURE RADAR