LOOKING DOWN TO FIND UP-TIME GPR – Ground Penetrating Radar – Utility Locating When Hanover Engineering began work on a 20-mile long sewer project estimated at $18 million, they knew it wouldn’t be easy to analyze the subsurface rock on the trench lines. Traditionally, this task would require boring test holes approximately every 30 feet–a tedious, time-consuming approach that’s still regularly followed. If the project’s team had stuck with this approach, more than 3,500 holes would have to be bored for analysis.

But Hanover Engineering, an East Coast firm providing consulting, civil engineering and support surveying services, did not have the time needed to bore that many holes. The project’s timeline was restricted by a grant, and so there was nothing for it but to search for a faster, more modern method to accomplish the work.

“I felt we needed to find some type of system, some type of equipment, that could survey in a way that we could analyze the amount of rock on these trench lines,” said Matthew Epler, EIT with Hanover’s Ephrata, Pa., office.