ECI's investigation equipment includes powerful Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) units. Our ground penetrating radar units are available with either a 250mhz or 500mhz antennas. ECI's GPR survey equipment is state-of-the-art. ECI's multiple antenna availability insures that the best available technology will be utilized for your application.
ECI's Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR)
A GPR system radiates short pulses of high-frequency EM energy into the ground from a transmitting antenna. This EM wave propagates into the ground at a velocity that is related to the electrical properties of the subsurface materials (specifically, the materials relative dielectric permittivity). When this wave encounters the interface of two materials having different dielectric properties (i.e., dry soil and saturated soil), a portion of the energy is reflected back to the surface, where it is detected by a receiver antenna and transmitted to a control unit for processing and display.
Depth penetration is a function of antenna frequency and the electrical conductivity of the soils in the survey area. Lower frequency antennas achieve greater depth penetration than high frequency antennas, but have poorer spatial resolution. Conductive soils, such as clays, attenuate the radar waves much more rapidly than resistive soil s such as dry sand and resistive rock.
ECI's use the GPR method for real-time high resolution mapping of the subsurface. Some typical uses of Ground Penetrating Radar are as follows:
- Locate and delineate under ground storage tanks (metallic and non-metallic)
- Locate metallic and nonmetallic pipes and utility lines
- Map rebar in concrete structures
- Map landfill boundaries
- Delineate pits and trenches containing metallic and nonmetallic debris
- Delineate leach fields
- Delineate previously excavated and backfilled areas
- Map shallow ground water tables
- Map shallow soil stratigraphy
- Map shallow bedrock topography
- Map subsurface voids and cavities