GPR Method as an Efficient NDT Tool to Characterize Carbonate Rocks during Different Production Stages (Winner Best Oral EAGE-GMS Meeting)

Abstract

Summary Iran and Italy have a great potential in stone production relying on a variety of dimension stone quarries, especially carbonate rocks. To survive in the modern challenging international market, it is crucial to have products without defects. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) method as a rapid and efficient non-destructive technique (NDT) can be used to characterize carbonate rocks during different production stages. In this paper, we present the results of GPR measurements to monitor the quality of marble and limestone rocks at different scales. Considering the availability of GPR antennas in a wide range of frequencies, providing different resolutions, GPR method is very encouraging to detect the desired discontinuities of carbonate rocks at different production stages. Lower frequency antennas can detect major discontinuities to optimize the extraction design. Higher frequency antennas can later detect smaller fractures of the extracted blocks to optimize slab production. Our research is under progress to explore the efficiency of GPR method in mapping the quality of resin injection in fractured rocks. As an auxiliary NDT method to be integrated with GPR measurements, ultrasonic pulse velocity tests are also performed. The results show that changes in the velocity can be a good indication of the stone quality.