Testing and Assessment of Portable Seismic Property Analyzer

Disclaimer The contents of this report reflect the views of the author(s), who are responsible for the facts and the accuracy of information presented herein. This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of Investigator will thoroughly test and assess the Portable Seismic Property Analyzer (PSPA), a hand-held device that focuses on pavement layer properties. The device can be utilized on both rigid and flexible pavements. When used on rigid pavements, the PSPA can provide information with respect to the quality and thickness of concrete, the existence and/or the location of voids or delamination within concrete, and the existence of voids or the loss of support underneath the slab. For flexible pavements, the PSPA provides information about the quality of the asphaltic-concrete layer. The condition of the transportation network in the United States is deteriorating and requires enormous financial and human resources for its maintenance and mitigation. According to the National Bridge Inventory [39], about 25.4% of 600,000 bridges in the United States are structurally deficient or obsolete. The health monitoring of concrete bridge decks and pavements is critical for its maintenance and rehabilitation. Rapid, non-destructive, and accurate condition assessment and performance monitoring of bridge decks and pavements will significantly reduce the cost and human resource for its maintenance and rehabilitation. The dominant current practice used by the state departments of transportation (DOTs) for inspection of concrete bridge decks and pavements has been chain dragging and hammer sounding. They can be described as nondestructive and relatively rapid. However, the accuracy of chain dragging and hammer sounding are significantly compromised by the fact that they can be used only to identify delamination at stages in which the deterioration has already progressed to such an extent that major rehabilitation measures are needed. Furthermore, these traditional inspection methods cannot provide important monitoring parameters direct related to the health condition of bridge decks and pavements, such as the strength of the concrete and the depth of the delamination. The modern nondestructive techniques have been widely used as routing inspection methods for bridge deck and pavement evaluation in recent years. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) and seismic testing methods are two popular modern nondestructive techniques and their advantages are significant compared with traditional inspection methods. Ground penetrating radar has been successfully used for bridge deck and pavement evaluation over two decades. The principle of the method is using electromagnetic waves to locate objects buried inside the structure …