Detection of Buried FRP Composite Pipes Using Ground Penetrating Radar

Abstract

Millions of miles of pipelines are used in the United States to transport natural gas and petroleum products. The traditional metallic pipelines undergo significant amount of corrosion related degradation in the field environment, which have led to numerous accidents. This research proposes innovative Fibre Reinforced Polymer (FRP) composite pipes for replacing degraded metallic pipes and for new pipeline construction. The FRP composite pipes are lighter, non-corrosive and have a long service life. However, they pose a challenge for subsurface detection and mapping since the traditional techniques used by construction crews to detect buried metallic pipes do not work for non-metallic composite pipes. This research investigates the use of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Nondestructive Testing (NDT) technique in conjunction with innovative strategies to make buried FRP composite pipes detectable, which is crucial for the field implementation of the new generation of pipelines.