Restaurant Remodelling

THE WOODLANDS, TX

Challenge

OmniVueNDT was requested to perform the difficult task of locating and marking the location of post tension cables and steel reinforcement on the celling of the restaurant for anchor bolt installations. There was a lack of space required to utilize a special kind of GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) scanner to be able to perform the scan to successfully complete the job. Therefore a high frequency GSSI Palm Antenna was used for this project instead.

The Method

In the following images we can see the celling from the ground. We instantly notice that the celling has fireproofing installed and sprayed to the bottom of the concrete slab. Crew members of the GC (General Contractor) had to remove the fireproofing material partially from the celling to be able to perform the GPR scanning.

Fireproofing would create a rough surface, so the GPR cart would not be able to perform well and also contain chemicals that attenuate radar signal significantly. After the area of interest was cleared the scanning was completed, the result is seen on the image below. Based on this layout the anchor bolt locations area was ready to be drilled and the installation could start in a safer way.

The other part of the job was to locate rebar layout inside the columns. The image below indicates the result of the scan. Uniform as built pattern was determined quickly and in an accurate way with the GPR scanner. The reinforcement layout was marked on the surface of the column in order to avoid drilling into the steel. By using this layout General Contractors can save time when their crew is performing the drilling onsite.

This type of service would help GCs to significantly reduce the risk of cutting or drilling into structural steel or cable, therefore providing added value and reducing the liability on the construction site.