A Coca-Cola distribution facility in Chicago, IL had recently been remodeled, a project which included the construction of several new interior masonry block walls. Questions arose regarding whether the walls had been built properly, specifically whether the walls had been properly reinforced. The facility management requested a non-destructive investigation into whether rebar and grout had been placed into the appropriate cells of the block walls.

GPRS technician Nathan Machel performed a ground penetrating radar survey of the questionable walls. The GPR was easily able to detect which cells contained rebar and grout, and which cells contained empty voids. The results were instantly available, allowing the cells containing rebar to be marked and the reinforcing pattern to be determined very quickly. The data collected will allow the architects and engineers to design an appropriate fix for any walls which were lacking sufficient rebar, and the use of non-destructive GPR allowed large amounts of data to be collected rapidly and without any damage to the walls.

Nathan Machel is the manager of GPRS operations in the Chicago Region. He is based in Chicago, IL and he can be reached at 847-514-2277 or by email at nathan.machel@gp-radar.com.  Concrete scanning for the purposes of identifying the location of rebar, electrical conduits, and post-tensioning is the most frequent service performed by the GPR technicians at GPRS.

One of the walls in the Coca-Cola warehouse which was scanned to identify which cells contained rebar and grout. This entire stretch of the wall was scanned within a few minutes, and the rebar pattern was identified. The GPR system instantly detects voids and rebar, allowing the reinforcing pattern of masonry walls to be determined very quickly.