Ground-penetrating radar for detection of leaks in buried plastic water distribution pipes

Abstract

Ground-penetrating-radar (GPR) could in principle identify leaks in buried water pipes by either detecting underground voids created by the leaking water as it circulates near the pipe or by detecting anomalies in the depth of the pipe as the radar propagation velocity changes due to soil saturation with leaking water. The potential of ground-penetrating-radar for leak detection is independent of the pipe type, e.g., metallic or plastic. Therefore GPR could help avoid difficulties encountered with commonly used acoustic leak detection methods in the case of plastic pipes or it could be used as a supplement to these methods. An extensive survey using Ground-penetrating-radar was carried out at a specially constructed experimental leak detection site to evaluate the radar's potential for leak detection. In this paper, the results of this survey will be reported and discussed.