Combining Signal Features of Ground-Penetrating Radar to Classify Moisture Damage in Layered Building Floors

Abstract

To date, the destructive extraction and analysis of drilling cores is the main possibility to obtain depth information about damaging water ingress in building floors. The time- and cost-intensive procedure constitutes an additional burden for building insurances that already list piped water damage as their largest item. With its high sensitivity for water, a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) could provide important support to approach this problem in a non-destructive way. In this research, we study the influence of moisture damage on GPR signals at different floor constructions. For this purpose, a modular specimen with interchangeable layers is developed to vary the screed and insulation material, as well as the respective layer thickness. The obtained data set is then used to investigate suitable signal features to classify three scenarios: dry, damaged insulation, and damaged screed. It was found that analyzing statistical distributions of A-scan features inside one B-scan allows for accurate classification on unknown floor constructions. Combining the features with multivariate data analysis and machine learning was the key to achieve satisfying results. The developed method provides a basis for upcoming validations on real damage cases.

Non-Destructive Testing in Civil Engineering

“…The radar method, due to its high sensitivity to water, can be an important and non-destructive support for this problem. Therefore, the article [9] describes a modular sample, which was developed to obtain the appropriate thickness of screed and insulation material. The resulting dataset was then used to examine the corresponding characteristics of a signal in order to classify three situations: dry insulation, damaged insulation, and damaged screed.…”

Analytical Models and Laboratory Measurements to Explore the Potential of GPR for Quality Control of Marble Block Repair through Resin Injections

“…Wherever high contrasts in the physical properties of the target and its hosting medium are expected, proper geophysical techniques can be successfully applied to provide valuable information about the subsurface conditions, e.g., [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Among different geophysical techniques, the ground penetrating radar (GPR) method can provide high-resolution results in a variety of applications, e.g., [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. In recent decades, GPR surveys have been increasingly used in the quarrying industry and stone production to study the depth to different layers, detect faults and fractures and monitor the defects of stones, e.g., [11,13,[34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43].…”