Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 1435–1450

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Ain Shams Engineering Journal

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Civil Engineering

Contribution of analysis and detection the risks appearing in roads using

GPR method: A case study in Morocco
Gamil Alsharahi a,⇑, Mouncef Filali Bouami d, Ahmed Faize b, Mohamed Louzazni c, Abdellatif Khamlichi a,
Mohamed Atounti d
a
Department of Physics, Faculty of Sciences, Abdelmalek Essaâdi University, Tetouan 93000, Morocco
b
Department of Physics, Polydisciplinary Faculty, Mohammed 1st University, Nador 62000, Morocco
c
Science Engineer Laboratory for Energy, National School of Applied Sciences, Chouaib Doukkali University, El Jadida, Morocco
d
Computer Science Department, Polydisciplinary Faculty, Mohammed 1st University, Nador 62000, Morocco

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This work aims to analysis and detects the reasons of the collapse of a road in northern Morocco using
Received 14 May 2020 simulation based on the Finite-Difference Time-Domain method (FDTD) and a real survey by ground-
Revised 27 September 2020 penetrating radar (GPR) method. In the simulation, we test several targets buried in dry soil at the same
Accepted 16 October 2020
depth. Depending on the simulation results GPR survey is done in two zones. The first zone shows mul-
Available online 4 December 2020
tiple strong reflections, it indicates the presence of cavities. In the second zone, the profiles show the
presence of the cavities and fragile lands saturated. Based on the results of the analysis and investigation
Keywords:
experimental results, it is found that the causes of collapses on the road are due to the presence of the
Non-destructive
Ground penetrating radar
cavities and fragile lands saturated with water. This contribution can be effective and successful in study-
Risks ing areas when establishing infrastructure projects to avoid any risks that in the future.
Cavities Ó 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University.
Subsidence failure This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-
nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction non-distractive, fast, and less expensive method. Basically. It

In the last decade, near-surface geophysical methods, such as
Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and electrical resistivity
tomography (ERT) [1 2 3], have been used to detect various under-
ground problems as cavities and fractures. The GPR has been
widely used for near-surface investigations. It is a high resolution,
Abbreviations: GPR, ground penetration radar; FDTD, Finite Difference Time
Domain; NDT, non-destructive testing; N-I-N, network in networks; IRS, incremen-
tal random sampling; CNN, convolutional neural networks; E, electrical filed; H,
magnetically field; e, permittivity of the medium; l, permeability; q, charge
density; j ?, free current density; i, j, and k are the coordinate location; R, reflection
coefficient; Aj, instantaneous amplitude of j-thA-scan; Ns, the total number of A-
scans used in post-processing; tmax, the time window duration.; Amax and Amin,
functions of illustrates the global signature signals of a given radargram.
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: alsharahigamil@gmail.com (G. Alsharahi).
Peer review under responsibility of Ain Shams University.
Production and hosting by Elsevier
depends on emitting short electromagnetic (EM) pulses (50–
2600 MHz) and receiving the reflecting signals from subsurface
structures [4 5 6]. Generally, GPR instruments have two antennas,
transmitting and receiving antennas. The choice of the central fre-
quency is indeed an essential issue that depends heavily on the
geometry, physical properties, and depth of the targets. The GPR
is based on the excitation of the subsoil, from a transmitting
antenna, by a train of short duration pulses in order to detect,
the successive echoes associated with the contrasts of permittivity
or conductivity encountered by the electromagnetic waves during
their propagation. These contrasts testify to the presence of buried
targets or subsoil stratifications. The use of the GPR is much more
recent due to the instrumental constraints associated with it, and it
is the subject of a significant amount of current research work [7].
If there are no changes in the properties of the material between
the medium and the target, the EM wave will spread out and be
largely attenuated with depth rather than reflected the surface [8].
The GPR has been used alone or combined with various
techniques to detect and identify different subsurface problems.
For example, Tang et al., [8] presented a study using the GPR signal
as the input data into 2N-I-N processes to detect the

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asej.2020.10.014
2090-4479/Ó 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
G. Alsharahi, M. Filali Bouami, A. Faize et al.
pavement-distress. Both researchers in [9] and [10] applied the
neural networks to identify entombed targets in the roads utilizing
the GPR transmission. Other works proposed by [11] and [12] were
about using a genetic algorithm to detect the targets using GPR sig-
nals. On the other hand, the GPR provides a great application in the
detection of several problems using only the GPR signals [13] Met-
waly et al. applied GPR signals to locate a buried object by a terres-
trial vehicle. An investigation to map and identify the subsurface in
Holy Mecca. Sagnard et al., [14] used the GPR in terms of multi-
layered soil with dielectric, and various dielectric pipes and blades
buried at various depths at Paris city. A review of the application of
GPR methods presented by Zajícováet al., [15] was about using the
GPR in different soil studies [16]. In addition, an evaluation of the
Common Mid-Point approach for air-coupled GPR using ground-
coupled antennas applied to the road [17], and other a comparison
between GPR, GPS and IMU have been used to locate a different
object target subsoil [18]. Recently, Zhang et al., [19] presented
moisture damage in bridge deck asphalt pavement using the
GPR, incremental random sampling (IRS) and deep convolutional
neural networks (CNN) to recognize, detect and localize moisture
damages. The IRS algorithm is proposed to select the adequate
GPR images to feed the CNN from the input of the deep learning
models. The experimental findings showed the successful effi-
ciency and supremacy of the suggested methods in the identifica-
tion and position of moisture degradation in asphalt pavements
using a GPS tracker, a smart GPS server 3.3, google earth and statis-
tics to optimize travel time and sensitivity analysis based on the
influence of driver behavior, truck travel movements and the use
of travel time on coal haul roads [20]. On the other hand, detailed
work has been performed on the identification of pavement dis-
tress. Commonly, the major part of these experiments used auto-
matic tools to identify multiple distresses [21]. The GPR has been
used in the detection of multiple-layer reflections to detect the
problem of the pavement layers [22]. However, technical complex-
ities still appear in several places and need to integrate GPR with
developed numerical algorithms.
Recently, the cavities and fragile areas are among the most
important objectives of engineers to plan projects and create the
infrastructure to face risks and collapse, as well as resist some nat-
ural phenomena such as earthquakes that are also more meaning-
ful for archaeologists in various fields [23]. Almost all of the
methodologies implemented to identify cavities, water-saturated
and fragile areas, the physical characteristics of which (conductiv-
ity and dielectric constant) are significantly different from the host
sediment or rock [24]. The previous studies on the detection of cav-
ities did not fully distinguish those cavities from other material.
Due to the existence of equivalence in certain components or the
characteristics of the constant dielectric of the cavities and iron,
the value is almost the same. Throughout this research, we estab-
lished a numerical code to display the amplitude of the buried
entity signal during the excavation, and it was successful to discern
the cavities entirely [25].
In this context, due to motivation by the deficiencies of the
earlier research, we addressed the feasibility of integrating the
GPR and FDTD algorithm to detect various cavities in the real
case. it is Noted that the GPR and FDTD are widely used together
in numerical modeling, for example, Lu et al., [26] used the two
techniques with the RSG grid method to measure the EM wave
transmission in 3D. According to Diamanti et al., [27], Millington
et al., [28], Fang et al., [29] and Ralchenko et al., [30], the FDTD
numerical method is easy to be implemented and programmed.
The most FDTD techniques are dependent on Yee’s [31] method
characterized by simplicity in the utilization. The basic theory is
to use a staggered system to place spatial interpretations of the
dual principal system positions. According to previous references
about the FDTD method, which was used to simulate the
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Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 1435–1450
detection of cavities and fragile places in the many cases similar
to the studied case in Morocco, we proposed the FDTD numerical
method implemented in GprMax and Matlab. Generally, literature
considered that the cavities are one of the most challenging
obstacles and problems in civil engineering, construction, and
quarries that are not suitable for placing explosives. The presence
of cavities throughout the surrounding soil from an economic,
manufacturing, and construction development perspective is a
possible cause of harmful phenomena [15]. The cavity finding
has long become one of the key targets of geophysical mining
operations. It reflects a primary target that might happen to avoid
the dangerous process. In particular, locating cavities in especially
in urban areas is necessary to avoid numerous causes of emergen-
cies associated with potential crashes. Such cavities are still of
great interest to archaeologists. Almost all of the strategies sug-
gested are groundwater or air-filled ruptures which physical
characteristics vary greatly from either the source sediment or
stone [2 16].
In order to carry out a detailed analysis of the signal charac-
teristics of GPR cavity reflections, computational calculations are
first conducted using the GprMax method. GprMax is developed
by Antonis Giannopoulos simulator based on the FDTD and GPR
[32]. This technique is commonly employed in many areas, such
as optical analysis for an optical system, like a waveguide ser-
ies, antenna analysis due to its generality and simplicity [33].
The FDTD method discretizes the electrical and magnetic fields
into the dual lattice in space and time coordinates. However,
the FDTD method is essentially based on the integral of Max-
well’s equations. Moreover, this paper detects the cavity in a
different area using the experimental and theoretical simulation
[24].
This paper will organize the following sections: section 1 illus-
trates the methodology through the description of the real case
study, use material and methods. Section 2 investigates and dis-
cusses the numerical background and methodology using GprMax
and Matlab. Section 3 presents the results and discussion through
the simulation and the use of the GPR in the real case study, and
the last section is the conclusion.
2. Methodology
In this section, a description of the selected location, material,
and software are given in details.
2.1. Road descriptions
The study area is situated near to Ksar Sghir a rural community
in northwest Morocco (Fig. 1 was taken from google maps). A new
modern national road was constructed 3 years ago. Lastly, various
deformation was detected in the road in different positions as
shown in Fig. 1. Further, the clarification of the causes of the land-
slides that occurred on that road and other problems is from the
objective of the current study.
This problem occurred in several Moroccan roads, these phe-
nomena and problems are a great challenge for engineers and com-
panies. Still, now all researchers are using the GPR to find several
solutions by detecting the problems in the subsoil and proposing
the solutions. This study area is characterized by coastal and
semi-mountainous region consisting of the top layers of dry and
sub-humid substrates with a mixture of rocks and some cavities,
meaning the land is fragile and not solid and coherent that charac-
terized by high permittivity and conductivity as well as the pres-
ence of some wet areas.
G. Alsharahi, M. Filali Bouami, A. Faize et al. Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 1435–1450

Fig. 1. Location of the case study (Ksar Sghir city) and the occurring subsidence constructed roadway.

2.2. Materials and data acquisition ium, is scattered from the targets, and is detected by a receiving
antenna. A 2D image of the environment can thus be constructed
The collected data have been generated using the GPR instru- thanks to the post-processing of the echoes received by the receiv-
ment (GSSI SIR 3000) as illustrated in Fig. 2) is used because its ing antenna. There are three types of prospecting by Geo-radar
penetration depth is well enough to go deeply into the ground which give rise to different records: A-scan (1D), B-scan or radar-
where cavities exist [34]. The instrument is a one-channel GPR gram (2D), and C-scan (3D).
device and is appropriate for a large variety of functions. The sys-
tem contains the item: electronic control panel with packaged soft- 3. Numerical background and Methodology: GprMax and
ware. Fig. 3 presents the used GSSI SIR 3000 which has two Matlab
antennas (200 MHz and 400 MHz). The Radan 7 software is used
for processing of GPR data real. In the actual work, use is made The GPR phenomena are based on Maxwell equations propaga-
of the antenna. tions. These equations express mathematically the relationship
between the fundamental electromagnetic field quantities and
their dependence on their sources [35]. The Maxwell equations
2.3. GPR principle (1), 2, 3 and 4 are given by:

!
The GPR is equipped with an antenna for emitting an electro- div H ¼ 0 ð1Þ
magnetic wave in the form of high frequency and broadband
pulses. The electromagnetic wave is radiated from a transmitting
! q
div E ¼ ð2Þ
antenna, travels through the material at a velocity which is deter- e
mined primarily by the permittivity of the material (Fig. 4). The
!!
wave propagates out and travels downward until it hits an object !
! ! @E
that has different physical properties from the surrounding med- rot H ¼ j þe ð3Þ
@t

!
!
! @H
rot E ¼  ð4Þ
@t
! !
where, t is the time, E and H presents the electric and magnetic
field, respectively, e is the permittivity of the medium and l its per-
!
meability, q the charge density and j the free current density.
The discretization of the electrical and magnetic field of Max-
well equations in space and time by FDTD is presented in equations
(5) and (6).
0 n 1
Ex j Ex ji;j1=2;k
Dt @ i;jþ1=2;kDy A
Hz jnþ1=2 ¼ Hjn1=2 þ ð5Þ
i;j;k i;j;k
li;j;k
Ey jn Ey ji1=2;j;k
iþ1=2;j;k
Dx
Fig. 2. The GPR radar GSSI SIR 3000.

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Fig. 3. The used GSSI SIR 3000 used in experiments.

Fig. 5. The Yee cell geometry and definition of the electric and magnetic field
components.

Fig. 4. Principle of GPR, h is the depth of the target. where, e1 an e2 represents the relative permittivity of the medium
and the target, respectively. One can notice that if the permittivity
of the target is greater than that of the medium, the reflection coef-
0 ri;j;k Dt
1 ficient will be negative, while this coefficient will be positive if the
12ei;j;k
Ez jnþ1 @ A n permittivity of the target is small than that of the incident medium.
i;j;k ¼ ri;j;k Dt :Ez ji;j;k
1 þ 2e In GPR the collected data is scanned in terms of the reflected
i;j;k
0 10 nþ1=2 nþ1=2
1 electric field amplitude presented by GprMax in radargram with
Dt Hy ji;jþ1=2;k Hy ji;j1=2;k
C time variation of the amplitude. The data are constituting of vari-
þ@
ei;j;k
AB Dx
ri;j;k Dt :@ Hx jnþ1=2 Hx jnþ1=2 A ð6Þ ous reflected diagonal signals collected in the vertical position of
1 þ 2e i;j;kþ1=2 i;j;k1=2
the antenna named wiggle trace or A-scan. If the GPR moved along
i;j;k Dy
the measuring line, the GprMax will show the collected data in a
where i, j, and k are the coordinate location along the X ,Y, Z axes, two-dimensional image which is called B-scan. This image con-
respectively, n is the current time step-index and Dx, Dy, Dz are tains all the reflection events that happen inside the soil as a func-
the position along X, Y, Z axes, respectively (Fig. 5). tion of the GPR position and is used to estimate the presence of
On the other hand, the GPR system is designed to transmit a buried objects which are at the origin of these reflections. The
short pulse electromagnetic wave for detecting a target in the sub- interpretation of the obtained radargram signal by GprMax can
soil. When this wave reaches a discontinuity, a part of it is reflected then be performed to identify the nature of buried targets and to
and returned to the GPR antenna and sensed by the receiving differentiate between them.
antenna. The reflected wave is described by a reflection coefficient In the present works, the FDTD numerical method has been
(equation (7)) illustrated in the following equation. considered for its important and powerful in simulation and
pffiffiffiffiffi pffiffiffiffiffi
e1  e2 resolutions of several complex systems. The FDTD is used in the
R ¼ pffiffiffiffiffi pffiffiffiffiffi ð7Þ
e1 þ e2 GprMax2D software packages, which is dedicated to the

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time-domain simulation of GPR waves according to B-scan or C- 1

Dt 6 Dtmax ¼ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð10Þ
scan models which are 3D presentations of the problem. In addi- c D1x2 þ D1y2 þ D1z2
tion, we use the Ricker signal pulse emitted by the GPR antenna
given in the following equation (8). The third step is for identifying the frequency and signal type.
    The pseudo-code and flowchart of the electrical and magnetic
2 t2 t2
EðtÞ ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffi 1  2 exp  2 ð8Þ fields in equations (5) and (6) are given in the appendix.
3sp1=4 s 2s
where s pulse duration. 4. Results and discussions
The associated peak frequency and bandpass frequency (equa-
tion (9)) are given respectively by. This section is divided into 2 part, the first is for numerical sim-
(
f c ¼ 0:1686 ulation using GprMax and Matlab for different targets. it aims to
s
ð9Þ identify the length, physical propriety and the geometrical of the
f b ¼ 0:09192
s targets. While the second part is for the real case study using the
The GprMax is associated with Matlab in order to develop the GSSI SIR 3000 with the antenna 200 MHz to collect various data
FDTD numerical method with specific parameters. The first step from the Ksar Sghir city national road. The relation between the
is to define the permittivity dielectric, conductivity, and perme- two-part is the validation of the GprMax and Matlab in the identi-
ability magnetic of the subsoil. In the second step is to the deter- fication of the length and geometry of various targets that can be
mine the Dt time impulsion of the waves in GPR antenna, and detected in the subsoil.
the stability coordination’s Dx, Dy, and Dz (equation (10)). The
relationship between the time impulsion and the Cartesian defini- 4.1. Numerical simulation for detection some targets
tion is given as:
In this work and before starting the application of the GPR to
study the road condition. We created a numerical simulation by
developing code using the FDTD method to detect cavities, fragile
areas, saturated with water using GprMax2d and Matlab software.
Table 1
Physical proprieties of the targets. In the second step, we made a real survey by applying the GPR
depending on the results obtained from the numerical method.
Material Relative permittivity er Conductivity r (S/m) The collected data is analyzed in different scenarios and simulated
Wood 3 0.003 in GprMax and Matlab, to investigated the amplitude of the
Rock 9 0.0001
reflected waves. In this section, multiple targets buried at the same
Iron 1 1,000,000
Soil (Dry) 6 0.01
depth in the subsoil are selected with different physical properties
Steel 1.45 9.93  106 named: iron, wood, cavity (air), rock, and water. Table 1 summa-
Air (Void cavity) 1 0 rizes the properties physical of used targets in the simulation.
Freshwater 80 0.5 The dielectric properties of the dry soil are considered as rela-
Wet clay soil 15 0.05
tive permittivity er ¼ 6 and conductivity r = 102 S/m. The simula-
tion is used in the Reflexw software by selected the ‘‘Ricker like
pulse shape” as centered frequency equal to 400 MHz [36].
The wave velocity in the host medium is given by the value
m = 1.22.108 m/s and the penetration depth around 21 m. Fig. 6
illustrates the targets in the Reflexw software.
All the targets are placed at the same depth 1 m and separated
by enough distance to enable any significant interference between
the sensed echoes produced by the buried objects. The obtained
results using Reflexw software are presented in Fig. 7 in the radar-
gram representation.
Fig. 7 illustrates that all the targets have the hyperbolae form
resulting from multiple reflections occurring at different parts of
Fig. 6. The targets presentation in the Reflexw software. the obstacle or between the top and bottom sides of this obstacle.
A hyperbolae trace cannot be used as it appears in a radargram to

Fig. 7. Radargrams of the simulated for detection of targets by Reflexw software.

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G. Alsharahi, M. Filali Bouami, A. Faize et al.
Fig. 8. Rectangular geometry of the target buried in the soil (air, steel, freshwater or
wet clay soil).
identify the nature of the target material which is producing it. In
particular, for the case of iron, wood, and cavity, apart from some
intensity contrast almost the same trace pattern is observed. This
illustrates the problem of interpretation which is encountered
when one deals only with the obtained radargram image without
further processing.
Fig. 9. Radargrams of the simulated target at 200 MHz: a) Air, b) Steel, c) Freshwater, d) Wet clay soil.
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Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 1435–1450
In the 2D mode, the depth of the buried target can be retrieved
by using the instant time corresponding to the hyperbolae apex
and the known value of the wave speed which is indicated on
the right side of the radargram. The time of the traveling wave
between the GPR antennas and the target is determined from
Fig. 6 as tmin = 16.4 ns, and the wave speed in the medium with
1 m depth is the input of the simulation. Noted that the big chal-
lenge in the real case study is the difference between the void cav-
ity and the filled cavity either by water or wet clay. For this issue,
several cavities buried in dry soil are simulated in GprMax2D soft-
ware. The results are presented by using the radargram in the B-
scan inspection protocol by varying the frequency.
Author Chiara Caselle [37] has simulated and modeled by code
GprMax2d that work similar to what we did, for example detection
for voids and Synthetic radargram with the anomaly considered as
filled of water.
The soil area of the simulation is supposed to be rectangular
with Lx = 4 m, Ly = 2 m as depth, and the simulated targets named
air, steel, freshwater, and wet clay are with the same dimensions
given as l = 0.7 cm and the hight h = 0.3 cm. all targets are buried
in dry soil at the same depth d = 0.7 cm as presented in Fig. 8.
The used FDTD numerical method is discretizes the spatial steps
pffiffiffi
at Dx = Dy = 0.005 m and time step Dt < Dx=v 2, in this simulation
the value of Dt = 11.793 ps is used which satisfies largely this con-
dition. The distance between the top of the soil and the bottom is
equal to 2 m, and the transmitted waves arrived at 27 ns.
G. Alsharahi, M. Filali Bouami, A. Faize et al. Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 1435–1450

Fig. 10. Radargrams of the simulated target at 800 MHz: a) Air, b) Steel, c) Freshwater, d) Wet clay soil.

Figs. 9 and 10 illustrate the radargrams of the simulated results velocity analysis. To analyze and identify the nature and geometry
using GprMax2D using two central frequency 200 MHz and of the cavity in the subsoil, a special new function is developed.
800 MHz’s. it is reported that two hyperbolas have occurred at Using the A-scans radargram obtained from GprMax the following
the left top edge and right top edge of the rectangular targets. function is developed in the collection of time amplitudes.
The accuracy is obtained using the second frequency which can 
be used to detect small details. Amax ðxÞ ¼ max Aj ðx; tÞ
j ¼ 1 : Ns ð11Þ
The identification and examination of the simulated targets
from radargrams illustrated in Fig. 11 and Fig. 12 show that for 0 6 t 6 tmax
the case a and b have a positive amplitude reflection that is due

to the lower value of the permittivity of the target compared to Amin ðxÞ ¼ min Aj ðx; tÞ
soil. While in case c and d are negative and indicating that the tar- j ¼ 1 : Ns ð12Þ
get has a higher permittivity than that of the soil. Noted that no 0 6 t 6 tmax
difference is considered or appeared between the case a and b.
but in the second case, there is a significant contrast between the Where Aj is the instantaneous amplitude of j-th A-scan, x is the
c and d. The above highlights need more specific parameters to actual GPR position during B-scan, Ns the total number of A-scans
assess the nature or geometry of the target. used in post-processing, tmax the time window duration. The func-
The next numerical simulation is made for the purposes that tions of Amax and Amin illustrates the global signature signals of a
can find several criteria to identify the cavity in the subsoil in B- given radargram.
scan representation collected from GPR and analyzed in GprMax/ Using the equations (11) and (12) in the above-simulated prob-
Matlab. In GPR and GprMax several functions can be used to lems in the 200 MHz and 800 MHz the signatures of the given
extract variable information’s concerning the radargram. That radargram presented in Figs. 9 and 10. The actual position of GPR
includes the position of the GPR like horizontal and vertical scale can be retrieved by multiplying the number of steps by the x-
adjustments, surface normalization, data filtering, noise removing, step which is equal to Dx = 0.005 m.
deconvolution for removing ringing, migration for removing Figs. 10 and 11 illustrate the signature as extracted from the
diffraction, Hilbert transform, extraction of local peaks, and radargrams using the functions Amax and presented in red color
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G. Alsharahi, M. Filali Bouami, A. Faize et al.
Fig. 11. The signature of radargrams illustrated from Fig. 8 for fc = 200 MHz, in red the function Amax and blue the function Amin a) Air, b) Steel, c) Freshwater, d) Wet clay soil.
and Amin with blue color for the simulated targets. The existent of
the negative amplitude of the maximum reflected wave that can
be explained by the presence of the water which can be sutured
the soil or inside the cavity. On the opposite, the positive ampli-
tude is due to the softer material, which has permittivity inferior
to the medium and indicates the presence of a void cavity. Figs. 11
and 12 present the reflected amplitude and attenuation of the
reflected wave from the detected target in the subsoil. It remarked
that the freshwater reflects a high amplitude and attenuation
while saturating water of subsoil gives small reflected amplitude
and attenuation, as presented in Figs. 11 and 12 cases c and d.
Noted that the used frequency fc = 800 MHz provides adequate
details of the cavity structure than 200 MHz, which applies as well
for the signature signals. That can be shown from Figs. 10 and 11
but the real cavity bottom boundary can be retrieved after that
by performing further velocity analysis which is provided by com-
mon Reflexw and GPR software.
4.2. Experimental results
Researcher Francisco Garcia-Garcia [36] has worked to detec-
tion the causes of the collapse of a street in Spain using GPR appli-
cation, and this is similar to the study that we did on a road in
Morocco.
In this section, the GPR is used to collect the date from the Ksar
Sghir road. the results present two zones using the frequency of
200 MHz.
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Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 1435–1450
Zone 1 is located between the points 7 km and 8 km on the
road. In this zone 6 profiles were fixed because several clear cavity
traces are showed clearly and each profile has a length approxi-
mately to 40 m. The collected data is investigated using the B-
scan presented in Fig. 13.
Fig. 13 shows the obtained radargrams along a typical A-scan
which is depicted on the right side of the radargram. The cavities
are present in zone 1 for profile 1 appearing beginning from the
depths 2 m to 4 m and from antenna positions 170 m to 205 m.
In profile 2, the cavity appears between the coordinates 221 m to
241 m and depths from 2 m to 5 m. The other profiles show also
the presence of various cavities. At the bottom of the cavities, no
special reflection pattern appears stating that this part of the sub-
soil is homogenous. The A-scan pattern for profiles numbers 1 and
6 show that the soil is wet as noticeable attenuation is observed on
the related A-scans. For the other profiles, the A-scan shows mul-
tiple strong reflections indicating that the cavities are empty and
the soil dry.
Zone 2, the investigated was from point 10 km to 11 km on
the same roadway. Fig. 14 gives the radargrams obtained from
the collected data in this zone. A total number of 10 profiles
with the same length 40 m approximately are presented. The
profiles 3, 5, and 9 show the presence of cavities. The other pro-
files show the presence of water in the road subsoil. As it is vis-
ible in the A-scan appearing on the right side of the profiles, the
saturated zones are characterized by low reflected amplitudes
and rapid attenuation of the wave. To separate the saturated soil
G. Alsharahi, M. Filali Bouami, A. Faize et al. Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 1435–1450

Void cavity Cavity filled with steel

400 400
a b
Reflected amplitude Ez

Reflected amplitude Ez
300 300

200 200

100 100

0 0

-100 -100

-200 -200

-300 -300
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Number of steps Number of steps

Cavity filled with fresh water

Cavity filled with wet clay soil
400
400
c d
Reflected amplitude Ez

Reflected amplitude Ez
300 300

200 200

100 100

0 0

-100 -100

-200 -200

-300 -300
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
Number of steps Number of steps

Fig. 12. The signature of radargrams given in Fig. 9 for fc = 800 MHz, in red the function Amax and blue the function Amin a) Air, b) Steel, c) Freshwater, d) Wet clay soil.

interface from cavities, the results of the preceding section in
terms of the established qualitative criteria are used. In profile
1, the presence of a wet soil zone is visible because of the ampli-
tude starting from the positive side to the negative side. The
amplitude is attenuated and the medium seems in this case to
be cavity filled with wet clay soil.
Figs. 13 and 14 show that the road of Ksar Sghir city was con-
structed on the karst area which is full of cavities without any ini-
tial study.
In practice, the amplitude of the wave on the right of the radar-
gram indicates the location and type of target according. If a neg-
ative polarity is observed somewhere, we can conclude that the
cavity is presented in the soil at a certain distance from the
antenna. However, by using a complete B-scan, we can see if the
investigated line crosses the ground at the proximity of a vertical
line passing through the cavity location. This will indicate where
to draw a new B-scan line to get a more refined radargram. With
the proposed signature signals, we can observe more easily varia-
tions affecting the maximal amplitude and by monitoring these
variations managing then more easily to approximately situating
the obstacle location. Also, we can detect if there is any interaction
with other buried targets if the signatures change their form.
The criterion presented in this work has made it easy to distin-
guish between various types of obstacles and specially to differen-
tiate between empty cavities or saturated cavities with wet clay.
The proposed method enables to guide more effectively the user
for achieving the identification of buried objects in the subsoil.
1443
Previous studies have been using the GPR experimental method
to reduce work safety risks in karst areas [37], but this does not
give decision criteria enabling to conduct systematic easy identifi-
cation of the nature of soil imperfections while conducting the
inspection task. In our case, the signature amplitude was employed
to decide on the type of target that is behind the observed radar
pattern. This consists of extracting the A-scans from the radargram,
performing their treatment according to equations (11) and (12),
and then studying the evolution of the signatures in terms of max-
imum reflection of amplitude of signal and attenuation.
The objective is to develop in a future work, an automatic treat-
ment based on the ideas presented in this work and to implement
by GPR and Radan7 software.
5. Conclusion
This paper deals with a method in detecting the causes of land-
slides using non-destructive detection by GPR application in
Moroccan roads. Before using the GPR survey, a theoretical simula-
tion is carried out to identify the physical characteristics of targets
that can be found in the underground as the cavity, saturated area
with water, and others. This simulation has done using GprMax
and Matlab, based FDTD method. The experimental results
obtained by GPR were validated by using the GprMax2D, Matlab,
and Reflexw that were based on the FDTD method to realize
post-processing of given radargrams. The obtained results showed
G. Alsharahi, M. Filali Bouami, A. Faize et al.
Fig. 13. GPR data collected during road investigation of zone 1 and given under the form of radargram profiles, a typical A-scan is shown on the right side of each profile.
the presence of multiple cavities at different positions of the
inspected part of the road in zone 1 and zone 2. In fact, after the
analysis and investigation process of the theoretical and experi-
mental results, it was found that the causes of collapses on the road
were due to the presence of the cavities, fragile lands and other
saturated areas with water at a depth of more than one meter.
Based on these results and the methodology, this method can be
effective and successful in studying areas when establishing
infrastructure projects to avoid any risks that occur in the future.
The GPR has proven to be a very effective technique in studying
underground subsurface and urban developments. The obtained
1444
Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 1435–1450
results demonstrate a strong capability to effectively recognize
and identify the position, form, and depth of different cavities.
Using the numerical FDTD method, this technique helps us to
determine or comprehend how the environment undergoing anal-
ysis seems exactly.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
G. Alsharahi, M. Filali Bouami, A. Faize et al. Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 1435–1450

Fig. 13 (continued)

1445
G. Alsharahi, M. Filali Bouami, A. Faize et al. Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 1435–1450

Fig. 14. GPR data collected during road investigation of zone 2 and given under the form of radargram profiles, a typical A-scan is shown on the right side for each profile.

1446
G. Alsharahi, M. Filali Bouami, A. Faize et al. Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 1435–1450

Fig. 14 (continued)

1447
G. Alsharahi, M. Filali Bouami, A. Faize et al. Ain Shams Engineering Journal 12 (2021) 1435–1450

Fig. 14 (continued)

1448
G. Alsharahi, M. Filali Bouami, A. Faize et al.
Appendix A. Pseudocode
Appendix B. Flowchart of the used algorithm
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