State of the Art Quality Control – Road Construction
Houston, Texas, like other large cities, has been expanding over the years. Increasing population would require adequate infrastructure system for cities in order to create a livable environment for residents. Building and expanding our infrastructure is one thing, but creating a SMART infrastructure system would be the main goal.
We are living in a world of technological inventions, so why don’t we implement diverse technologies into our everyday work practices? There are companies with plans out there to capture, thus recreate virtual reality of roads, highways, and their surroundings to provide complex PointCloud database for Autonomous vehicles to support the future of driving and style of travel. However, we have not yet thought about mapping out the subsurface conditions. It is not about the lack of need, but most likely the lack of knowledge about the right procedure to follow in order to perform roadway assessments.
OmniVueNDT has invented a unique work procedure for improving road construction quality check both for thin layer mapping and base layer condition assessment. Our knowledgeable team would provide a comprehensive information system to end users of the industry such as civil engineers, transportation engineers, the city development team and TxDOT. OmniVueNDT is well equipped to conduct road scan investigations carried out with joint GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) methods.
The following is an example of how to utilize GPR to create a SMART information system.
Two different procedures were mentioned before:
The first, GPR RoadScan procedure provides subsurface condition information of the near surface up to 12 feet in depth. The following image is a typical 2D GPR cross section.
2D GPR Cross Section
After the data filtering and the noise deduction the image is ready to be analyzed. Different types of anomalies are marked accordingly and saved as a GIS file in both numerical and vector form. The deliverable is a SHAPE file and a scaled CAD drawing which is essentially the result of the 1.5D GPR inversion.
The second GPR RoadScan procedure provides thin layer thickness information of roadways and highways in the shallow zone up to 30 inches in depth.
The following image is a typical 2D GPR cross section after thorough data processing and surface normalization.
2D GPR Cross Section
Chart below the radar image is the result of post processing. Both numerical and vector data will be captured for creating the final report. Core samples can also be used to calibrate radar (See images below).
The image below indicates layer thickness map with a legend to be used for making final assessment.
Layer Thickness Map
In addition to the GIS map a numerical layer thickness information is also exported and created as part of the deliverable.
