ABSTRACT

1.0 INTRODUCTION

2.0 BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW ON GROUND PENETRATING RADAR The first use of electromagnetic pulses to determine the embedded structural features appears in 1904 in the work of Hulsmeyer. In his case, he observed that buried metal objects which has contrast dielectric values from the surrounding sand would produce reflection. Later in 1930's and onwards, this pulse technique was developed by the geophysicists as a means of glacier depth estimation by Stern. From the beginning of the 1970's , the modern use and development of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) has become more demanding tasks in the domain of civil engineering. A general overview of GPR basic principles is discussed comprehensively to provide better understanding of the method.

3.0 GPR BASIC PRINCIPLES 3.1 GENERAL The basic principles of GPR is the transmission of a short high frequency electromagnetic (EM) pulse into the media using a transmitter antenna and record the reflected pulse as the amplitude and polarity using the receiver antenna. Some features of reflection within concrete slabs were studied by various researchers and can be identified by their general characteristic pulse shapes. The reflection feature of EM waves is controlled by the contrast of electrical parameters in the media, i.e. the electrical permittivity, , the electrical conductivity, , and the magnetic permeability, . Generally, all of these three electrical parameters are dependent on the GPR frequency, especially at low frequencies which is less than 105 MHz, but often persist with diminishing dependence character up to 1 GHz frequency range (Sen N.P. and Chen W.C., 1982, lagi). All of these electrical parameters can be decomposed into its real quantity and imaginary terms. Brewster M.L. and Annan A.P. (1994) had developed a general relationship that relates all three electrical properties to the intrinsic impedance of the medium, ( ), which is frequency-dependent as in following equation

( )

In practice, if there is a significant contrast in the one of these electrical properties in the media, the radiated EM waves will be reflected when impinged on the top surface or interface of the media according to the magnitude of the contrast. However for concrete material, the reflection produced is primarily affected only by the variation of permittivity as the concrete magnetic permeability is not varied (Daniels D., 2004). Qiang G. (2011) mentioned that the concrete conductivity is very low and almost equal to zero. Following this observations on concrete electrical property, the intrinsic impedance of the concrete medium can be made simplified as

It is therefore be concluded that the reflection of GPR in concrete is mainly caused by the contrast of the permittivity, , between two medium that lead to the variation intrinsic impedance, Z, which has been verified by xxxxxxx . Figure 1a shows a typical reflection on embedded rebars inside a dielectric concrete medium and Figure 1b shows the multiple reflections on both asphalt and concrete medium.

Figure 1 Schematic of Radar Reflection on one dielectric medium (asphalt and concrete)

dielectric medium (concrete) and multiple

3.2 REVIEW ON THE MAJOR FACTORS AFFECTING THE ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES IN CONCRETE In general, the electrical property of any dielectric material is controlled by the permittivity, , conductivity, , and magnetic permeability, of any dielectric material, which can be expressed as complex number as the following equations

( ) ( ) ( )

( ) ( ) ( )

( ) ( ) ( )

where j = , , , are the real parts and , , are the imaginary parts of each property. The real part of complex permittivity, so-called dielectric constant, is associated with the energy storage capability in material arise from charge polarization due to imposed external electrical field. The imaginary part of the complex permittivity is commonly linked with the energy loss in the material to an external electric field. Most dielectric materials including wood and concrete are nonmagnetic, which results in constant magnetic permeability property, ( ), that very close to the permeability of free space (Jamil M. et al., 2013). It is therefore, the most important electrical property that dominates the most dielectric materials in construction materials are the variation of permittivity and the conductivity only. A comprehensive review on factors attributing to permittivity and conduction variation in concrete is reviewed in this paper on understanding how different reflection on EM wave is produced.

3.2.1 Influence of Water Saturation Degree on Concrete Electrical Property Dielectric Permittivity It is commonly recognized that decade ago, water content will be the most influence factor on increasing the dielectric permittivity in concrete. The increase will comprises of the real part as shown in Figure 1 and the imaginary part (Soutsos et. al., 2001, Oota S., 2000).

Figure 1 Relative Dielectric Permittivity for Fibre, Honeycomb and Salt Impregnated Concrete Specimens at 500 MHz (Source: Soutsous et al., 2001)

Although both real and imaginary part of the concrete permittivity increased due to increased moisture content, the gradient of the dielectric permittivity curves decreased marginally at very high level of water content as reported and depicted in Figure 1 by Soutsos et al. (2001) and Maierhofer C. and Wostmann J. (1998). Two possible causes had been identified attribute to this marginal dielectric decrease; the bounded water molecules absorbed in capillary pores is restricted in motion by electrostatic interaction with the solid particles results in smaller marginal increase of dielectric permittivity and the possible of small unhydrated cement that react and consumes free water which reduces the bulk dielectric permittivity (Soutsos et al., 2001). The same behaviour also observed in the experimental findings in air-cured concrete reported by Lai W.L. and Tsang W.F. (2008). However, well-compacted concrete attributed from water-cured concrete do not display the same behaviour as it posses smaller fraction of gel pores (less than 2-3 nm) than the less compacted concrete as shown in Figure 2 by Lai W.L. (2008). Halabe U., Maseer K., Kausel E. (1988) produced the numerical dielectric as a function of water saturation percentage using the for two different water salinities under 1 GHz GPR as shown in Figure 3. A linear relationship between the dielectric constants and the degree of water saturation was shown in the study. As the concrete is saturated, the dielectric constant is significantly increased from 4.5 to 8.5 (salinitiy = 12 part per thousands) and from 4.5 to 9.2 (salinity = 80 part per thousands).

Figure 2 Plots of against water saturation level, Sw, using 1 GHz on series of concrete specimens (Source: Lai W.L., 2008)

10 8 6 4 2 0 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 Porosity =0.1, Salinity = 12 ppt Porosity =0.1, Salinity = 80 ppt

Figure 3 Variation of Dielectric Constant as a Function of Water saturation in Concrete (Source: Halabe U., 1988)

Table 1 Relationship between the dielectric constant and water content in concrete and computed values of Researcher Zhang J. (2011) 6.4, 11.3 Chen W. (2012) (coarse aggregates) (fine aggregates) Jamil M.(2013) 16.8, 122.7 Halabe U. (1988) Laurens S. (2005) No equation reported, but showed a positive linear relation No equation reported, but showed a positive non-linear relation Cannot be compute, but within acceptable range Cannot be compute, but within acceptable range 2.6, 9.2 3.5, 11.6 Proposed equation Computed on dry and 10 % saturation

The numerical findings provided by Halabe U. can been also compared with various experimental works by varying fashion of relation. Zhang J., Han B. and Yang J. (2011) and Chen W. (2012)

proposed a linear equation describe the relation between the dielectric constant and the moisture content in concrete specimens. On the other hand, however, a non-linear relationship between those two parameters had been plotted by Laurens S. et al. (2005). Recent work by Jamil M. et al. (2013) using microwaves techniques showed an nonlinear relationship between the percentage of moisture content volume with the dielectric constant using microwave technique. The relationship of various researchers for the both parameters and its computed values are summarized in Table 1. In can be clearly seen that computed values by Zhang J. and Chen W. are in good agreement with the laboratory works provided by Soutson M.N et al. (2001) and Robert A. (1998) since the dielectric constants is between 4 (dry concrete) to 8.2 (saturated). However, the computed values given by Jamil M. seems to be far away from the laboratory values of concrete dielectric constant, showing its fitting limitations on typical concrete dielectric constant. Despite of contradiction in the computation, it is clearly that the variation of water content in concrete can lead to significant changes in the dielectric properties of the concrete.

Electrical Conductivity

Figure xxx : Conductivity variation according to water content (Source: Klysz G., 2008)

Figure xxx Typical variation of conductivity with frequency and moisture content (Source: Soutsos et al., 2001) water conductivity dielectric effects.pdf

3.3.2 The influence of chloride impregnation Conductivity is the ability of material to conduct an electrical current flow due to movement of electron. It is also can be related to the resistivity as this is the reciprocal of conductivity. Ordinary Portland cement have been reported by Princigallo A. et al. (2003) to have electrical conductivity property; with its early conductively varied from 1.8 S/m for plain paste to 0.3 S/m for concrete with 75% aggregate content. As shown in Figure 3, the conductivity is a function of aggregate content and began to decrease with time as the consequence of microstructural modification. After 3 months of hydration ( 105 minutes), the conductivity value will be dropped to less than 0.1 S/m and might not significantly affect the intrinsic impedance of the material to provide any reflection on GPR.

Figure 3 Electrical Conductivity as a Function of Time for Varying Aggregate Content Many studies had shown that the chloride ion have an influence on conductivity of concrete structures. The need of the study arise from the corrosion of rebar problem in reinforced concrete for countries where salt is applied to roads for deicing purpose. One of the study by Kalogeropoulos A. et al. (2011) demonstrate that the variation of 1% in chloride content will raise the concrete conductivity by approximately 80% (from 0.06 S/m to 0.11 S/m) at 70% relative humidity and might increases with higher chloride content. The direct effect of this increasing conductivity on the propagation of EM waves is the amplitude/energy weakening or amplitude/energy attenuation effect that leads to reduced propagation velocity. To access the amplitude weakening due to conductivity, the attenuation rate can be computed by the following equation (Daniels D., 2004);

( ) where

( ) ( )

( )

is the frequency-dependent attenuation rate coefficient in dBm-1, is the loss tangent of concrete or loss factor. The velocity of EM waves is slowed by an increase of loss tangent by the following equation; [ ( ) ]

The physics behind the amplitude attenuation by conductivity can be explained by the loss tangent. This quantity combines the conductive loss effect related with the free ion/charges acceleration in

the concrete pores, loss associated with water molecular rotation and the interstitial build-up charges within pores. The losses are the product of the moving charges/ions during the passage of the alternating EM signal, where some of the propagating EM energy is converted into heat (Hippel V., 1954). Table 2 shows the attenuation rate at 100 MHz and 1 GHz for common materials. Table 2 Attenuation rate for certain materials at 100 MHz and 1 GHz Material Sand (dry) Fresh water Sea water Concrete (dry) Brick at 100 MHz (dB/m) 0.01-2 0.1 100 0.5-2.5 0.3-2.0 at 1 GHz (dB/m) 0.1-20 1 1000 5-25 3-20

Figure 4 Inverted conductivity and permittivity values as function of relative humidity for different chloride contents

The attenuation constant, , of a material is appear to be approximately linearly related to frequency to a first order over the bandwidth of the GPR frequency as shown in Figure 5. As reported by Bradford J.H. (2011), the occurrence of this frequency-dependence character is cause by the dominant dispersion propagation over displacement current propagation at the low end of the frequency spectrum, around 10 MHz or less. At high frequencies spectrum (10 MHz - 1 GHz), the displacement current propagation will dominate over the dispersion propagation and the attenuation frequency-dependent behaviour is diminished. The same behavior can also be applied to concrete material.

Figure 5 Frequency-dependent attenuation of certain materials

3.3.3 Influence of Electromagnetic GPR Frequency on Concrete Electrical Properties The factor effect of electromagnetic frequency to concrete permittivity was studied by Robert A., (2003). As depicted in Figure 6, Robert A. found that both real ( ) and imaginary part ( ) of concrete dielectric are reduced with the increasing of EM frequency. Although the real and imaginary part decreases significantly within the low frequency (less than 500 MHz) , the curves of both electrical parameters tend to be less influenced by frequency within 500 MHz to 1000 MHz range; showing its dielectric frequency-independent character over high EM frequency range.

Figure 6 Typical Variation of Concrete Permittivity with Frequency (Source: Lihua S., 2003)

Kwon S., Feng M. Q. and Park S.S., (2010) studied the relation between the concrete conductivity at various cement-to-ratio (w/c) with the EM frequency as shown in graph in Figure 7. The plotted graph suggested that an approximate linear relationship at low w/c between the electrical conductivity and the frequency .

Figure 7 The effect of EM frequency on concrete conductivity (Source: Kwon S., 2010)

REVIEW ON THE EFFECTS OF PERMITTIVITY AND CONDUCTIVITY ON EM WAVES REFLECTION conductivity effect on tranmission coefficient.PDF building material propagation.pdf

It is therefore, to conclude that EM reflection waves in concrete is mainly caused by the changes of permittivity and conductivity that affects the propagation velocity and attenuation rate in the material. This could be due to the existence of moisture and the chloride content that significantly change the electrical properties of the concrete. Figure xxx shows a flowchart that link the relation of different reflection on EM waves due to changing of permittivity and conductivity in the nonmagnetic material.

Dominant Electrical Properties in Nonmagnetic Material (i.e. Concrete)

Permittivity

Conductivity

VARIATION IN MOISTURE CONTENT, CONDUCTIVITY OR EM FREQUENCY

EM Propagation Velocity

EM Energy Attenuation

PRODUCE DIFFERENT REFLECTION FEATURES Figure 1 Relation of different reflection on EM waves due to changing of permittivity and conductivity in the nonmagnetic material

4.0 REVIEW ON THE POTENTIAL USE GPR REFLECTION IN CIVIL ENGINEERING APPLICATIONS

Based on the GPR reflection, a number of works in civil engineering fields have benefit it as a nondestructive means to access the information on buried objects. New development on material characterization such as corrosion using GPR reflection in time-domain and frequency-domain analysis is discussed comprehensively in this section.

4.1 Estimation of Rebar Size Rebar is one of the cylinder targets in a concrete structures that seeks attention from the researcher to estimate its diameter size despite this being difficult and little evidence of industrial usage (Bungey, 2003). On the assumption that concrete would be considered as isotropy medium and rebar as the abnormal object in reinforced concrete, the radar wave has the tendency to reflect at the interface between rebar and concrete (He Z.Q. et al, 2009). The series of returning signals from rebars displayed as a hyperbolic image on the Bscan can provide some relationship between the rebar radius and the hyperbola geometry.

However, other researchers have identified other radar characteristics that can be linked with the rebar diameter estimation. Leucci G. (2012) manipulate the polarization behaviour of GPR waves on rebar direction to estimate the rebar size and yield accuracy within 6% of the actual size. Chang C.W. (2009) studied the variation of power reflectivity of varying embedded rebar diameter and estimate the rebar radius within 7% accuracy. Vincent U. (2004) estimates the rebar diameter based on amplitude ratios of the bar along and across the electromagnetic field and the rebar sizing accuracy is about 20%.

4.2 Locating and Detecting Rebar In Concrete

Accurate detection and location of rebar location using GPR is very important and useful in order to access the quality of concrete structures construction. The process of locating rebar position in concrete is relatively rapid as GPR could cover large areas and does not need any hacking or coring on the concrete surfaces (Shaw M.R. et al. , 2005). Xiang L. et al. (2013) successfully localised the rebar location and its precise numbers using synthetic-based algorithm in a tunnel structure. Beben D., Mordak A. and Anigacz W. (2012) performed an excellent attempt on identifying the location of upper and bottom reinforcing bars as well as the shear link spacings on a viaduct beams. Perez-Gracia V. et al. (2009) investigate the historical building floors and able to detect the location of rebars position based on the hyperbolic B-scan image. The rebar detection depth capability of GPR is dependent on its vertical resolution, of the equipment sensibility to localised rebar in time domain. Various approximate formulas had been proposed by researchers to define the vertical resolution as are summarised in Table 1 below; The proposed equations explain the pertinent parameters that control the vertical resolution. Daniels D. (2004) equation suggest that the vertical resolution will improves as the attenuation, , increases. The vertical resolution equations provided by Loken M.C. (2007) infers that the minimum resolvable vertical resolution is inversely proportion to the GPR antenna frequency and its square root of the dielectric constant, . Rial F.I. et al (2009) relates the effective pulse width, , which characterise the system bandwidth of impulse GPR system, with the vertical resolution.

Table 1 : Approximate formula to estimate the vertical resolution, Researcher Perez-Gracia V., 2001

, capability of GPR

Variables description = wavelength z= vertical distance between antenna and the reflector surface

[ (

Conyers L.B. and Goodman D., 1997 Daniels D., 2004

= relative permittivity of medium = attenuation in the medium (dB/m)

Loken M.C., 2007 Rial F.I. et al., 2009 Rial F.I. et al., 2009
2.3 Cracks and Void Detection

A =0.275 (based on regression analysis on GSSI GPR data) c= velocity of electromagnetic signal = GPR frequency bandwidth c= velocity of electromagnetic signal = effective duration of pulse

Concrete professional and engineers are interested in detecting the presence of cracks and voids that can impact the structural stability of a concrete structure. Besides , buried voids in concrete substructure can impede construction operations, undermine building foundations and be the cause of destructive ground subsidence. GPR method offers remarkable void detection capability as the radar wave is reflected when encounter the air or water interface inside the voids, eventhough There are a few works that document the use of GPR to detect air-filled voids through concrete structures. Amer-Yahia C. and Majidzadeh T. (2012) shown that small voids less than 3/4 inch were difficult to detect in the detecting gaps developed between the foam and the concrete. Cassidy N.J. et al. (2011) observed good and coherent reflections from the top of void by 900 MHz GPR antenna as compared to 450 MHz antenna on 2D image.

2.4 New Potential Use of Reflection: Corrosion Problem Detection Using GPR On Concrete Bridge Deck In the early of 2000, GPR was not considered as a appropriate method by engineers to detect corrosion problem in concrete. Kim W. et al. (2003) concluded that GPR cannot be used as a direct tools to resolved delamination or rebar corrosion within concrete bridge deck, however, the method successfully detect the zone with high dielectric constant and high energy attenuation. Other researcher, Scott M. et al. (2003) examined the radar amplitude response in delaminated concrete areas and solid concrete areas in bridge decks and observed that both areas did not show consistent response. Despite of this lacking, the method can provide consistent interpretations with the chain drag and half-cell potential test on other bridge decks by both authors.

Later, various laboratory done on studying the factors that initiate the rebar corrosion started to widen the capability of radar method to monitor bridge deck rebar corrosion condition. Most of the research works deal with the analysis of radar propagation velocity, amplitude and energy content of radar wave in the concrete which are highly affected by the variation of water saturation level and chloride ion. For instance, Viriyametanont K. at. al. (2008) had demonstrate clearly that water content in reinforced concrete slab has significant influence on radar wave propagation velocity. Sbartai Z.M. et al. (2006) used 1.5GHz GSSI radar system for the on-site physical concrete characterisation to analyse the direct wave amplitude of radar ground-couple antennas under different moisture and chloride content variation. Lauren S. et al. (2005) performed GPR measurements on concrete slabs with different degrees of water saturation in homogenous distribution and studied the effect of spectral content on the reflected GPR signal. They observed that there was a significant reduction on the GPR centre frequency when the concrete is wet. Although the reason for this situation was not well defined on that tim, a suggestion made by Padaratz and Forde (1995) that the variation in the dielectric constant of concrete due to water content could affect the centre frequency of the GPR pulse. Klysz G. and Balayssac J.P. (2007) studied the first positive and negative peak of direct and reflection wave amplitudes to find relationship between radar wave speed and the saturation degree of slabs. Zhang J., Han B., Yang J., (2011) proposed a linear relationship between moisture content of concrete and radar reflected wave velocity. Recently, Jamil M. et al. (2013) showed that dielectric properties concrete is rapidly increased until full saturation once exceeding the 5 % of moisture content. Detecting corrosion-damage to embedded rebar using GPR in concrete bridge deck structure had captured attentions from many researchers. The first laboratory effort was possibly attempted by Narayanan R.M. et al. (1998) to use GPR for detecting rebar corrosion in a field test. Hubbard et al. (2003) investigated successfully GPR signal features during accelerated corrosion testing procedure. A site survey conducted by Maser K. (2008) that use both GPR and thermography method showed excellent corrosion detection efficiency. Lai W.L. (2011,2010) employed short time Fast Fourier Transform to analysed spectrogram of radar bar reflection due to artificial corrosion procedure. It is an interesting fact there were many literatures found on how corrosion damage will affect the GPR wave response. Tarussov A. et al. (2013) concluded that attenuation of radar signal in deteriorated concrete zone is caused mainly by the increased conductivity of the concrete surrounding corroded rebar by the formation of corrosion by-product in microcracks. This fact is highly supported by Ohtsuka T. and Komatsu T. (2005) that proved rust layer on steel behaved as a dielectric layer under dry condition while its conductance was highly enhanced with wet condition. Laboratory and site investigation by Eisenmann D.J. (2013) concluded that thinned rebar will return larger difference in signal amplitude than for sound rebar due to amplitude-depth effect. Hong S.-X., Lai W.L. and Helmerich R. (2012) observed that the corroded rebar signal showed significant decreased on time travel

from the peak of direct wave to the peak of reflected wave and increased the spectrum amplitude during the employment artificial corrosion procedure. Lai W.L., Kind T. and Wiggenhauser (2011) concluded that the generation of multi-interfaces (steel-concretecorrossion product -air cracks) will increased the resistivity around the corroded rebar that shortened the GPR travel time. Kabir S. and Zaki A. (2011), Kabir S. (2011) showed that there they could locate the corroded steel rebar based on reduced size of rebar diameter on 3D GPR image. Zaki A. and Kabir S. (2011) were successfully classified the corrosion and no corrosion areas on rebar using digital image processing on 3D rebar GPR image. Dam R.L.V. (2002) revealed that the generated iron-oxide (Fe00H) attenuates the GPR signals due to its water retention capacity.

5.0 CONCLUSIONS AND POTENTIAL FUTURE WORKS

In this paper, a review on GPR principles on detecting buried object inside concrete material is discussed. The main factors affecting the electromagnetic waves reflection two main electrical property namely permittivity and conductivity is also explained. Influencing factors on variation on both permittivity and conductivity are reviewed. A potential new area on corrosion detection in concrete by GPR are discussed extensively.

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Laurens S., Balayssac J.P., Rhazi J., Klysz G. and Arliguie G., 2005, Non-destructive evaluation of concrete moisture by GPR: experimetal study and direct modeling, Materials and Structures, 38 (2005), pp. 827-832