GPR Investigation of Flexible Soil-steel Bridge Structure

Abstract

Flexible soil-steel structures are commonly used due to its advantages including quicker construction process, lower cost of erection and maintenance, architectural values and others. However its behavior differs from classic rigid structures. It may be the reason why principles of soil-steel structures’ work are not always completely understood and lack of grasp may cause construction and design faults. To enable its detection and elimination non-destructive testing methods should be used. These methods are widely applied due to possibility of insight into inside of the completed structure. Nowadays, one of the most popular NDT methods is Ground Penetrating Radar method. It is commonly used in communication engineering for technical condition assessment of road and airfield pavements, railway embankments or bridge decks. To date this method is not widely used for flexible soil-steel structures’ inspections. This paper shows application of GPR method for SuperCor structure study. As a result of the research series of processed radargrams were obtained. They allowed to detect construction incorrectness of backfill layers and drainage elements. Presence of these anomalies may affect the sustainability which is dependent on the proper execution of drainage system. Case study presented in this paper may be helpful in determining reasons of incorrect behavior of soil steel structures during its exploitation what was repeatedly reported by road administrators.