A study of GPR vertical crack responses in pavement using field data and numerical modelling

The application of ground penetrating radar (GPR) as a non-destructive technique for characterization of pavement structure on road networks has gained considerable attention during recent years. High resolution ground coupled GPR has the potential to provide important additional information on pavement deterioration, defects and cracks, the last being the focus of this study. Crack geometry and the electrical properties of the pavement surrounding the crack can be quite variable, resulting in often complex and hard to interpret data. Therefore, FDTD numerical modelling has been employed to help understand a range of GPR vertical crack responses observed in a variety of pavements.