Journal of the Korean Geo-Environmental Society ISSN:1598-0820(Print) 2714-1233(Online) 한국지반환경공학회 논문집

To prevent accidents due to the cavities and loosened layers formed due to water leakage from the deteriorated buried pipes, evaluation of the changes in water contents around the buried pipes is required. As a method to evaluate the water contents of the soils, time domain reflectometry (TDR) system can be adopted. However, slender electrodes used in standard TDR probe may be damaged when buried in the ground. Thus, in this study, buried type TDR module was developed for the evaluation of the water contents with maintaining required shape of the electrodes in the ground. The TDR module is composed of three electrodes connected to the core conductor and outer conductor and a casing to prevent deformation and maintain alignment of the electrodes in the ground. For the verification of TDR waveforms measured using the TDR module, comparative analysis was conducted with the TDR waveforms measured using the standard TDR probe, and the relationship between the volumetric water content of the soils and the travel time of the guided electromagnetic wave was constructed. In addition, a model test was conducted to test the applicability of the buried type TDR module, and the experimental result shows that the TDR module clearly evaluates the changes in volumetric water contents due to the leakage from the modeled buried pipe. Therefore, the buried type TDR module may be effectively used for the health monitoring of the buried pipe and the evaluation of the water contents around the pipes buried in the urban pavements.