Abstract: This paper presents the development of ground-penetrating radar bridge deck inspection systems sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration. Two radar systems have been designed and built by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The HERMES bridge inspector (High-speed Electromagnetic Roadway Mapping and Evaluation System) is designed to survey the deck condition during normal traffic flow. Thus the need for traffic control during inspection is eliminated. This system employs a 64 channel antenna array covering 1.9 m in width with a sampling density of 3 cm. To investigate areas of a bridge deck that are of particular interest and require detailed inspection a slower, cart mounted radar has been produced. This system is named PERES (Precision Electromagnetic Roadway Evaluation System). The density of data coverage with PERES is 1 cm and an average or 100 samples is taken at each location to improve the signal to noise ratio. Images of the deck interior are reconstructed from the original data using synthetic aperture tomography. The target of these systems is the location of steel reinforcement, corrosion related delaminations, voids and disbonds. The final objective is for these, and other non-destructive technologies, to provide information on the condition of the nation's bridges so that funds will be spent on the structures in most need of repair. !12
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