High Speed Xradar Concrete Corrosion Mapping on Bridges

High Speed, multichannel Xradar was utilised on a concrete bridge to identify severe corrosion & delamination.

Situation

A bridge engineering team had suspected that surface cracks visible from the top deck of the bridge led to more severe corrosion within the concrete. The two lane bridge is an important thoroughfare and therefore traffic could not be stopped for inspection of the structure.

Furthermore, the bridge deck had an asphalt overlay, which prevented traditional methods such as chain drag from being performed.

Solution

Xradar utilised their unique multi channel radar inspection system to scan the bridge. Data from the entire bridge was collected under 1hr and there was no need for lane closures. The data was then processed within 48 hours of the survey with our bespoke processing software for concrete corrosion mapping.

Drone photos were taken to create an accurate, up to date basemap for the bridge.

The results from the survey were hard to believe, 80% of the bridge deck was found to be corroded and delaminated. A visible correlation between the radar-detected deterioration and the crack pattern in the asphalt was observed.

Core Sample

Results from the concrete core tests revealed that the results were correct.

Reinforcement corrosion was in the advanced stages and delamination of the deck was also present in the majority of corrosion detected areas.