Monitoring Racetracks or Highways with Multichannel Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) 

How to ensure driver safety and track longevity with comprehensive inspection of the circuit

Overview

• The team at Alberta’s Rocky Mountain Racetrack prioritizes professional-grade maintenance and wanted to conduct a comprehensive inspection of the entire circuit. 
• The GM8000 mobile mapping GPR was used as a fast solution to scan the entire track. 
• Data was collected at 60km/hr with the entire track completed in 1 hour. 
• Provide High-Resolution Digital Imagery (2.5cm spacing) of the subsurface and assist in identifying potential issues.

Challenge

Maintaining a professional-grade race circuit like Rocky Mountain Motorsports (RMMS) in Carstairs, Alberta, presents a unique set of challenges. Racetracks are high-stress environments where asphalt must withstand extreme speeds and constant friction.

To ensure driver safety and track longevity, the management team needs to monitor:

• Asphalt Thickness: Identifying areas that may lead to premature cracking or surface failure.
• Sub-grade Uniformity: Detecting inconsistencies in the underlying layers that could cause uneven settlement.
• Debonding: View interface maps for potential debonding issues
• Crack Monitoring: Take Measurements
• Environmental Degradation: Monitoring for erosion and "washout" that can compromise the track’s engineering integrity.

Traditional inspection methods often require extensive downtime, which is a significant hurdle for a facility that operates 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

Solution

To address these challenges with minimal disruptions to operations, RMMS utilized the GM8000 multichannel mobile mapping GPR due to its:

Efficiency & Speed: The equipment was mounted to a vehicle, allowing the team to scan the entire circuit in 1 hour. Resulting in minimal downtime.

High-Resolution Data: With its 101-channel array, the GM8000 provides high resolution data in real-time, offering a comprehensive “map” of the track’s subsurface.

Ease of Use: Brad Young, the Track Operations Manager, noted the incredible ease of use, which allowed for rapid deployment and data collection.

“The ease-of-use of this equipment is actually incredible. We were able to go around the track at a decent pace. Being able to monitor for erosion and washout will really help us maintain the integrity of the engineered driving surface.”

Results

The track now has a digital model of the subsurface at the time of the scan. They can use this to monitor asphalt thickness, interfaces between different mix-designs and the uniformity of the underlying soil. This provides the maintenance team deliverables to inform their efforts on thin or high-wear areas rather than premature repaving. By monitoring the uniformity of the sub-grade and sub-base, RMMS can get ahead of voids, erosion or washout issues.

GPR Insights post-processing software was used to analyze the data in more detail and create different types of condition maps.

Having a dense set of data points allows RMMS to maximize the lifespan of their expensive facility, ensuring a high-quality driving surface for members and professional racers alike.

As one of the first circuits to utilize such advanced GPR data, RMMS is setting a new standard for how motorsports facilities are maintained and managed.

See more use cases on GPR in our Tech Hub.