Correction of GPR wave velocity at different oblique angles between traverses and alignment of line objects in a common offset antenna setting

Estimation of ground penetrating radar's wave velocity in materials is a critical step to accurately estimate depth of embedded line objects in concrete structures, and wetness of material. Errors of velocity are defined as the deviations between the velocities obtained in various oblique angles and those obtained in the traverse normal to the object orientation in a common offset antenna setting. In this paper, we quantified and corrected the errors of such estimation. GPR traverses were designed to travel in various oblique angles theta (90 degrees, 75 degrees, 60 degrees and 45 degrees) relative to the steel bars at 5 cover depths (55 mm, 85 mm, 115 mm, 145 mm and 175 mm). GPR wave velocity at any position within the lateral detection range of steel bars was measured with simple trigonometry in a semi-automated in-house program. It was found that reduction of oblique angles (i.e. theta < 90 degrees) causes flatter hyperbolic reflections and the associated errors of velocity can be as much as 30% in the case of an oblique angle 45 degrees before correction. Such errors were corrected after re-scaling the horizontal travel distance with a multiplication factor of sin theta. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.