Leakage detection using GPR
Case description
Error in setting the penetration depth of the machine piercing holes in the surface soil to sow the grass, causes several dozens local damages of the heating pipes. Most of the damages are visible in a form of pools. After mending all visible leaks, pools disappear from the surface of the lawn, but a lot of water still escapes from the system. Even geofon – special device to detect bigger leaks – seems to be useless.
GPR antenna laser tracking
Researched stadium panorama
Research place description
Full- scale football stadium. Over 30.000 heating pipes. Pipes lie in a small distance from each other – 25 cm. To minimize the possibility of wrong aerials leading exact laser tracking was used. There were made 364 profiles at 30 cm intervals, covering whole stadium that is over 7700 square meters.
Case study
After covering whole surface of the stadium and analysis the data it was possible to find places of the leakage. Find enclosed one example. Properly elaborated file shows the difference between the proper pipes and the pipes that are damaged. As it is shown on the picture below – damages are the size of needle hole so any other method failed an examination. Only due to GPR research we can so precisely determine place of the water leakage ( until the moment of obtaining the l eak-tightness of the heating system glycol mixture was not used)
Fragment of the profile showing the heating pipes leakiness
One of the excavation confirming accuracy of the research.