Annotation

Purpose: to test the method of ground penetrating radar surveying in the field for detecting a fault of a closed collector and to study the dependent factors influencing its efficiency. 

Materials and methods. The research was carried out on two (operational and faulty) sections of the closed collector route located within the boundaries of a drained field of the Menkovskiy branch of the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution “Agrophysical Research Institute” in the Gatchina District of the Leningrad region. The OKO-3 ground penetrating radar with the AB-400/900 MHz antenna unit was used. 

Results. The efficiency of detecting the collector’s faulty section using this method depends on the prevailing hydrological conditions in the soil layer located above the collector pipe and the contents of the drainage pipeline cavity. A sign of a faulty collector (the pipe cavity of which is completely filled with water) on the radargram is the presence of local objects with a double hyperbola. In this study, such objects were observed at a groundwater level of 15 cm from the surface and were not recognized at a level of 5 cm. The presence of a double hyperbola allows us to calculate the internal diameter of the collector pipe. Thus, the calculated collector diameter was 267 mm with a known value of 300 mm. An indirect indicator of collector failure is a relative decrease in the central frequency of the ground penetrating radar profile; relative to the collector’s operational section, this decrease averaged 8 %. 

Conclusions. The advantage of ground penetrating radar surveying is the ability to detect the collector route and localize the fault location without the use of mechanization. The work methodology involves conducting a ground penetrating radar surveying in two adjacent sections – the suspected faulty section and the section downstream of the collector; the survey is conducted in the direction of their common boundary until local objects with a double and single hyperbola are detected at the minimum possible distance under the survey. 

doi: 10.31774/2712-9357-2026-16-3-67-90

For quoting

Ostapchuk G. B. Detecting closed collector’s faults using ground penetrating radar surveying. Land Reclamation and Hydraulic Engineering. 2026;16(3):67–90. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.31774/2712-9357-2026-16-3-67-90.

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