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30/07/2019

If you’re looking to hire ground penetrating radar services for your site across Victoria including Geelong, Melbourne, Ballarat, Dandenong or Bendigo, talk to the talented team at Dig Safe Geelong. We have years of experience in our field and can assist with your next GPR project.

Contact Dig Safe Geelong

Ground-penetrating radar may sound complex to some but the general term for GPR is a subsurface utility mapping technique that works by emitting a pulse of radio waves into the ground. The radio waves can pulse range from 1MHz to 1,000MHz frequency range depending on the structure you’re mapping.

The GPR equipment then records these echoes that can come from subsurface structures. These echoes are similar to echolocation, which is what dolphins use and is utilised in ultrasounds. Finding these underground structures can be important to construction sites as they might restrict the work or become a hazard if work continues. As a pair, GPR can be assisted by vacuum excavation trucks, as they can target selected areas from undocumented infrastructure or natural obstruction on construction sites and complete non-destructive digging to unearth this infrastructure safely.

Overall, GPR is a useful tool that provides many industries with the data they need to accurately and safely continue their project.

How Does GPR Work?

Concrete structures like roads, buildings and airport runways use GPR to find structural issues before they become bigger concerns.

•    Water/sewage lines
•    Gas lines
•    Live electrical underground wiring
•    Road/bridge structural integrity
•    Concrete building structural integrity
•    Airport runway structural integrity

Mapping and locating structures underground can be crucial in areas hit by earthquakes as the GPR is a known tool that can help locate buried victims. The GPR method can map underground infrastructure to support future developments or infrastructure designs. Subsurface utility mapping and engineering (SUM/SUE) service providers turn to GPR for mapping, compared to traditional methods. Common structures that you might see being mapped with GPR include:

What Can GPR Map?

What is Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR)?

Ground-penetrating radar also referred to as GPR, is a term that is applied to the technique of releasing radio waves to locate and map subsurface structures. A GPR can typically create radio wave pulses ranging between a 1 MHz and a 1,000MHz frequency.

GPR has a variety of uses in various industries. Industries that support the use of GPR can range from civil construction and mine sites to archaeology and geophysics. Over the years, this technology had advanced due to its growing popularity and non-destructive nature. With a wide range of sectors utilising the ground penetrating radar technology, the GPR has developed to be able to accurately and safely locate more features of subsurface structures. Although some materials are still transparent to the GPR radio waves, most materials are not and can be easily located and mapped. The GPR can highlight features such as the depth and size of the structure along with the possible material characteristics of the underground structure.