Benchmarking large scale GPR experiments on railway ballast

•New analysis for using ground penetrating radar (GPR) for the evaluation of ballast fouling.•The Ionescu fouling index (FI) is relevant to UK railway track bed ballast particle size gradings.•GPR data was collected on a full-scale railway track bed at the University of Edinburgh.•A scan area metric...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inConstruction & building materials Vol. 92; pp. 31 - 42
Main Authors De Bold, R., O’Connor, G., Morrissey, J.P., Forde, M.C.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier Ltd 01.09.2015
Elsevier B.V
Subjects
Analysis
Antennas (Electronics)
Ballast
Benchmarking
Electric properties
Electromagnetism
GPR
Maintenance
Mechanical properties
Radar
Railway
Spent
Testing
Track bed
United States
Railway
Track bed
Ballast
Analysis
GPR
Spent
Benchmarking
Maintenance
Testing
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Summary:•New analysis for using ground penetrating radar (GPR) for the evaluation of ballast fouling.•The Ionescu fouling index (FI) is relevant to UK railway track bed ballast particle size gradings.•GPR data was collected on a full-scale railway track bed at the University of Edinburgh.•A scan area metric evaluation procedure was proposed for GPR data.•Using a 500MHz antenna, in the parallel orientation, r was greater than 0.9 for the Ionescu FI. The overall aim of this project was to relate ground penetrating radar (GPR) to a ballast fouling index (FI). Laboratory research aimed at characterising the electromagnetic properties has enabled researchers worldwide to determine ballast thickness using impulse ground penetrating radar (GPR) – based upon derived values of the relative electrical permittivity or dielectric constant. In this paper, a series of GPR experiments, following on from these laboratory experiments, were undertaken on a full scale track bed using a range of bowtie antennas from 500MHz to 2.6GHz. The key innovation reported is the use of scatter analyses of the GPR waveforms, featuring area, axis crossing and inflexion point analyses. These scatter analyses were then used to predict the Ionescu ballast fouling index. A correlation coefficient greater than 0.9 was obtained by using a 500MHz bowtie antenna in the parallel orientation in conjunction with a scan area analysis.
ISSN:0950-0618
1879-0526
DOI:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2014.09.036