Journal of Applied Geophysics 112 (2015) 7990

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Applied Geophysics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jappgeo

GPR survey for reinforcement of historical heritage construction at re

tower of Sopron
Ali Ismet Kanli a,, Gabor Taller b, Peter Nagy c, Peter Tildy b, Zsolt Pronay b, Endre Toros b
a
b
c

Istanbul University, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Geophysical Engineering, 34320, Avcilar Campus, Istanbul, Turkey
Geological and Geophysical Institute of Hungary, P.O. Box 35, H-1440 Budapest, Hungary
MinGeo Ltd., H-1142, Kassai u. 96, Budapest, Hungary

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 11 August 2014
Accepted 9 November 2014
Available online 15 November 2014
Keywords:
GPR
Seismic
Non-destructive testing
Cultural heritage structures
Renovation and reinforcement

a b s t r a c t
One of the most ancient cultural heritages of Hungary is the re tower located in the heart of Sopron city.
With the passage of time, some renovation and reinforcement studies were required for the valuable
structure. For this purpose, GPR based non-destructive geophysical surveys were carried out before and
after cement injection in order to observe the changes within the structures of the walls, to understand
the success of cement injection in the reinforcement studies, to nd and to monitor the voids and possible
cracks on the ancient walls and to nd the proper places within the walls of the historical tower which were
needed to be injected by cement. These surveys were applied during the preliminary stage of the structural
monitoring project and during restoration of the four main parts of the re tower's walls. Additionally, some
GPR surveys were carried out before the steel was inserted into some parts of the walls and some units of
the re tower. After the cement injection process, it is realized that the reections from the fractured and
porous zones weakened or were lost as seen clearly in GPR data. Besides these, signicant rises within
the P-wave velocities were also observed.
2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Ground penetrating radar (GPR) is one of the most important and
promising non-destructive testing (NDT) methods of geophysics for
subsurface detection problems that are generally used in geological
surveys (Nyari and Kanl, 2007), civil engineering and environmental
evaluations. GPR is also widely used at public transportation infrastructure construction and maintenance sites in urban environments with
the purpose of controlling the quality and the condition of the
structures. Other typical GPR applications include the evaluation of the
conditions of the public highways on the levels of both project and
network, the deterioration of bridge decks (Annan et al., 2002) and
the assessment of consolidation conditions behind tunnel linings (Liu
et al., 2007). GPR can be easily used by sliding the antenna over the
surface, therefore a fast data collection allows the users to investigate
large areas with the support of powerful computer systems which
can handle large amounts of data in the time available. Radar waves
cannot penetrate metals because of the nature of electromagnetic
waves but it can be used for concrete and masonry structures. There
are several types of antennas with different frequencies which allow

Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 212 4737070x17565; fax: +90 212 4737180.
E-mail address: kanli@istanbul.edu.tr (A.I. Kanli).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jappgeo.2014.11.005
0926-9851/ 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

to choose the penetration depths. For example, low frequency antennas

penetrate deeper into the material, but have lower depth resolution. On
the other hand, high frequency antennas have a higher depth resolution
with less penetration depth. Some typical radar applications on
concrete structures can be given as, location and concrete cover of
reinforcement and tendon ducts, moisture detection areas, thickness
measurement of layers, beams and slabs, localization of delaminations
and voids (Wiggenhauser, 2009).
Non-destructive geophysical survey methods are known as
powerful, fast and robust. One of the most important part is their capability in investigating a site or a structure in a non-invasive way,
i.e., without digging, boring or altering its original composition or
shape. As it is obvious, preference should be given to non-destructive
techniques while destructive ones (boring and digging) should be
minimized, especially when the buildings involved are highly deteriorated or ancient. Among non-destructive techniques, GPR is the one
which provides the most useful results. GPR is demonstrated to be an
ideal and effective non-destructive method to investigate ancient
structures of high cultural and historical value (Garcia et al., 2007;
Masini et al., 2010; Prez-Gracia et al., 2008; Pieraccini et al.,
2005). The complete architectural framework of a building, obtained
with GPR or other non-destructive methods, makes it possible to
plan activities of structural monitoring, conservation, restoration
and stabilization (Ranalli et al., 2004).

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One of the most ancient cultural heritages of Hungary is the re

tower located on the northern side of the Old Town in the city of
Sopron (Fig. 1). Its cylindrical lower part was built on the remains
of the Roman town wall, and served as the north tower of the city
from the 13th century onwards. The tower acquired its present
form with its Baroque balcony and helm roof after the great re of
1676 (Museum of Sopron, 2013). The re tower subsided and tilted
for 4 cm towards the city hall. The neighboring buildings had also
subsided. During the restoration and reinforcement studies at the
re tower, the injection of the soil under the tower was performed
in order to strengthen the funds of the tower. The renovation and
restoration studies of the re tower of Sopron Hungary started in
2011. Since the ancient walls needed a reinforcement, it was essential to inject cement into the walls of the re tower. For this purpose,
GPR and seismic based non-destructive geophysical surveys were
used to monitor the conditions of the walls and to nd the proper
places to inject cement and to nd the voids and possible cracks on
the ancient walls. The measurements were carried out before and
after the cement were injected into the walls and to control the

situation of the voids and cavities. Additionally, some GPR surveys

were also applied before the steel was inserted into the proper
parts of the walls and units of the historical tower.

2. The structure of the walls

The walls are made from various materials (Fig. 2). During the
construction of the re tower of Sopron, all the materials were
gathered from the places around the Sopron city. The workers used
many kinds of rocks, stones and materials from the environment.
The materials used in the construction of the re tower consist mainly of limestone, limestone with sandstone and some volcanic rocks.
The cementation of the walls was of very low quality and there was
high amount of air among the building's materials. As seen in
Fig. 2b, d and e, the gray parts show the injected cement material,
white areas seen in the cores show limestone (lecustrine), brown
parts show sandstone and the red-brown parts show the ints
(silicied rock).

Fig. 1. Fire tower of Sopron, Hungary (top view on the left, facade view on the right and the main entrance of the tower is given at the bottom).

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81

d
Fig. 2. Panel (a) shows the wall of the re tower, (b) shows the cement injected wall with the injection pipes, (c) shows the wall of the re tower with two drilled points, (d) shows the
boring cores and (e) shows a core including injected cement material which is connected to the other types of materials.

Fig. 3. The GPR image of the wall is given on the left and the test wall is given on the right. Small red dots denote the border of the GPR measurement which is indicated by a red arrow on
the right in the picture. Small nine blue circles show the injection points on the wall. The symbol X indicates the test injection points and the number 90 indicates the amount of cement
injected after the survey.

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Fig. 4. Investigated parts of re tower are the inner wall of the tower, the main and back gate, the city hall and the museum. Front entrance is on the left and its right side view is on
the right.

Fig. 5. GPR slices of the inner wall (arc of the main gate) from 1.2 m depth. On the top the proles are recorded to the museum side, in the middle from the top of the arc and in the bottom
to the city hall.

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83

Fig. 6. Two different GPR proles before the cement injection process in the inner wall
are given in the gure. On the top, it is Prole 2 from the top of the arc. At the bottom,
it is Prole 1 from the city hall. The prole locations can be seen in Fig. 5 drawn by yellow lines. In these two proles a 900 MHz antenna is used. The symbols b and N
indicate the cement owed out during the injection process.

3. Test injections and GPR measurements

Some injection tests were applied into the walls to understand
how cement can ow into these walls, to which direction it moves,
and to estimate its distribution, injection time, the organization
and success of the injection process, and the amount of cement
needed to inject into the walls before starting the GPR surveys. In
order to accomplish the test, 9 drillings were applied to some points
in the tail gate above the terrace. After the injection tests, as seen in
Fig. 3, the amplitude of reections becomes weaker on the injected
area.
As seen in Fig. 3, there is not any cement injection process applied
to the wall between the 4th and 5.5th meters. On the contrary,
between the 6th and 7.5th meters, there are 9 test injection points
as seen in the gure on the right. The cement injection parts of the
wall and the un-injected parts can be clearly distinguished from
each other on the radargrams or GPR images. After the cement
injection process, between 6th and 7.5th meters on the wall,
reections become weaker and it is proven that our GPR measurements resulted efciently in imaging the conditions of the walls for
the reinforcement studies of the tower.
4. Description and interpretation of GPR measurements
The rst part of the investigation was carried out before the
cement was injected into the walls and these measurements
lasted for 2 days. Two months after the cement injection, the remeasurements carried out lasted for 3 days. However, this time
break was needed not only for the cement injection process but
also for the stabilization of the walls. Besides, the break was needed

Fig. 7. Prole 3 on the top is the prole of the museum before the cement injection
process. At the bottom, it is the same prole after the cement injection process
(400 MHz).

for the walls to become rigid and stiffer. Total length of GPR
measurements at all walls of the re tower is 1731 m while the total
amount of injected cement to the re tower is 4860 l. The used GPR
instrument is produced by GSSI, type SIR-3000. In the GPR survey,
400 MHz and 900 MHz antennas were used. The space between proles
was taken 0.5 m for 400 MHz and 0.25 for 900 MHz antennas
respectively. During the GPR survey some disturbing effects were
encountered such as signals reected from scaffolding, holes, some
objects on the walls, cables in the walls and some space dividers on
the walls (Fig. 4).
To enhance the data quality, initially the interpretation linear
gain and horizontal lters were applied to the data. To display
voids and cavity, time slices were generated and then converted to
the depth. The reections caused by fractures, porous and gaps are
lled with the air. These kinds of reectors are shown as red colored
lines and indicated as anomalies in the gures. As seen in Figs. 57,
400 MHz and 900 MHz antennas were used to monitor the wall
conditions. After several trials and detailed interpretation processes,
400 MHz antenna results gave us better results to image the conditions
of the walls. Therefore, mostly 400 MHz antenna results are given in
the following gures after the injection process.
4.1. Inner wall (the arch)
As given in Fig. 5, there are two inhomogeneous patches in the
inner wall at 1.2 m depth. The smaller patch is in the direction of

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Fig. 8. GPR slices of the inner wall (arch of the main gate) from 1.2 m depth. On the top, the proles are recorded from the museum side, in the middle from the top of the arch and in the
bottom from the city hall as given in Fig. 5. In this gure, injection points on the walls with injected amount of cements (liter) are illustrated.

the museum and on the arch side. These anomalies have disappeared
almost after the injection process as given in Fig. 5. The second
inhomogeneous bigger patch is in the direction of city hall. After

injection, small anomalies probably associated with the voids that

have appeared in the images became smoother (Fig. 5). Anomalies
on the lower left corner are in clutters due to external reections.

Fig. 9. GPR slices at the tail gate before the injection process at 1.2 m depth. 900 MHz antenna records are on the left, and 400 MHz antenna records are given on the right (black dots show
the test injection points).

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85

than 0.5 m disappeared after the cement injection which indicates

that the survey has arrived to these depths.
The cement injection was made in half meter grid to the walls and
the amount of injected cements is presented in Fig. 8. The comparison
of the GPR slices and the injected cement amounts show that the
cement injection process is successful in the cavity at the arch and in
the museum wall and thus, the reinforcement of the walls could be
repaired by the ow of cement into the wall. The injection process
was always made from low to high, so the great amount of the cement
(100 l) at the border of the cavity could ll the voids in the arch.
4.2. Tail (back) gate
Fig. 10. GPR Prole 4 from the tail gate by 900 MHz antenna. Its location is indicated in
Fig. 9. The symbol X indicates the test injection points. The test injection was applied
before the measurements. The number 90 indicates the amount of cement injected after
the survey.

Fig. 6 shows some GPR proles at the cavity zones with the
amount of injected cement before the injection process. The symbols
b and N show the cement that has owed out during the injection
process. Prole 1 seems to indicate the correlations between the
amount of the injected cement and GPR anomalies. More fragmented
parts needed more cement to ll the voids and for better reinforcement. This possible correlation is not clear enough in Prole 2.
However, irregular crack connections might have produced a non
direct distribution of the cement that has owed in different
directions, the 210 l owed to the third direction and 100 l cement
lled up the voids from 1 to 3 m.
Fig. 7 shows Prole 3 (400 MHz) before and after 150 l of cement
injection. Anomalies detected before can be associated with voids
and cracks. After the injection, cement owed and lled the voids.
As a result, GPR image becomes more homogeneous, being associated with a more compact medium. It is clearly seen that 150 l of
cement at the left side owed to the right side and lled up the
voids. This process can be compared with the images after the
injection process given at the bottom. Reections at depths higher

Fig. 9 shows the depth slices in the wall of the tail gate. The walls
are less fractured when compared with the inner part of the walls,
but some fractured zones next to the columns can be seen and
imaged.
Before the GPR survey, some test injections were applied to the
right wall of the tail gate (black dots given in Fig. 9) as mentioned
in the section of Test Injections and GPR Measurements. In
Fig. 10, one of these test proles can be seen (Prole 4 indicated by
yellow colored line in Fig. 9). Symbol X indicates the injected points.
As it is seen in the image, the injection does not totally eliminate the
reections, but makes them weaker. The electromagnetic contrast
between the air and the building materials is higher than the
contrast between the injected cement and the building materials.
Fig. 11 presents the slices before and after the injection with the
amount of injected cement. As seen in the gure, it can be said that
the injection was successful and the reections became rather
weak when we correlate the injected volume with the GPR
reections.
4.3. Main gate (south wall outside)
The main gate direction is on the way of the main square of
Sopron. The gate is decorated and has very limited space to perform
the GPR measurements. The survey was carried out between the gate
and the city hall. In Fig. 12, the imaged higher anomaly became

Fig. 11. GPR slices at 1.2 m depth (20 ns) from the tail gate. In the gure, injection points on the walls with injected amount of cements (liter) are also illustrated. Both records are from
400 MHz antenna. Pre-cement injection process is given on the left side and the post-cement injection process is given on the right.

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Fig. 12. GPR slices at 1.2 m depth (20 ns) from the main gate. In the gure, injection points on the walls with injected amount of cements (liter) are also illustrated. Both records are from
the 400 MHz antenna. Pre-cement injection process is given on the left side and post-cement injection process is given on the right. The blue colored mark shows the location of the metal
lamp. At the bottom, GPR image of Prole 5 is given.

weaker while the lower anomaly was nearly the same. The reason of
the lower anomaly is a wire which goes through the wall. The signal
rings between the wire and the antenna. As seen in Prole 5 of the
900 MHz antenna at the bottom of the gure, the effect of the wire
can be recognized clearly nearly at half meter depth and 2 m height.
4.4. Wall of the museum (west wall outside)
The wall of the museum is divided into three parts with walls and
slabs (Fig. 13). In Fig. 13, the dashed black parts are walls, the blue
dashed areas are walls without plaster, the blue line given in

Fig. 13c is the pipe crossing through the wall, the blue dashed line
given in Fig. 13b is cracks on the wall and the blue dots in Fig. 13a
are drilled holes on the wall. As seen from the images in Figs. 14 and
15, there is one big anomaly covering all parts of walls (a, b, c)
that are bordered with red lines. Another anomaly is seen only on wall
c. Figs. 14 and 15 show the results of the GPR slices with
both 900 MHz and 400 MHz antennas before and after the cement
injection process. When we compare the results before and after
the cement injection, it is seen that the injection process is not
enough and there are still some parts which are not lled with
the cement. In the wall of the museum and the city hall, data of the

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87

Fig. 13. Pictures of the three different parts of the museum walls are given on the left and schematic view is given on the right (a, b, c). Black colored dashed areas indicate the slabs whereas
the blue colored areas indicate the wall without plasters. The blue colored line given in panel c is the plastic pipe.

Fig. 14. GPR slices at 1.2 m depth (20 ns) from the wall of the museum (Fig. 13a, b, c). Both records are from the 900 MHz antenna. Pre-cement injection process is given on the left side and
post-cement injection process is given on the right. The red colored line shows the anomaly that covers the three gates of the museum walls.

Fig. 15. GPR slices at 1.2 m depth (20 ns) from the wall of the museum (Fig. 13a, b, c). Both records are from the 400 MHz antenna. Pre-cement injection process is given on the left side and
the post-cement injection process is given on the right. The red colored line shows the anomaly that covers the three gates of the museum walls.

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injected cement volumes are not documented. As seen in the GPR images in the gures, there are also some strong reections which appear
as a result of the effects of the wire in the wall.
4.5. Wall of the city hall
The wall of the city hall is 3 oors high and it is divided into 4
different zones with slabs and walls (Fig. 16). In this wall, there are
many negative factors such as girders, hewed plasters, steel stabilizing columns, wires and holes. The city hall wall has been originally
constructed from the bricks. It is built next to the wall of the re
tower's stonewall. Due to these effects that are encountered, GPR
interpretation of depth slices is not reliable enough. In Fig. 17, the
orange colored line shows the border between the two buildings
(wall of the city hall and the re tower's stone wall). The reection
of the border is very strong and thus, it masks the deeper zones
and the interpretation becomes impossible. As seen in Fig. 16, the
ground oor of the city hall has non-plastered areas which have
resulted in the noisy GPR images.
5. Seismic investigations

Fig. 16. Schematic view of the city hall wall. The black dashed area marks the concrete
slabs and divided walls, and the blue (dashed) areas are without plaster zones. Light
blue colored areas indicate the steel columns to stabilize the walls and slabs. The blue colored (dashed) lines on the right top and the bottom right are the electric wires. The yellow
colored line shows GPR Prole 6.

To understand the seismic velocity distribution in the walls of the

re tower, some seismic surveys were used in addition to the GPR surveys. The seismic surveys were performed at two different parts of the
walls which are the inner wall of the museum and the inner wall of
the city hall. These seismic measurements were used as experimental
measurements in order to understand seismic velocity distribution
and the velocity change in the walls before and after the injection
process. In seismic investigation, only a hammer and a geophone were
used to record the seismic signals. The interval between the source
and the receiver was taken as 1 m. The P-wave velocities were determined by picking the rst breaks from the records (Fig. 18). These
data gave us the information from the shallow depths of the walls
which ranged from 10 to 20 cm.
Fig. 19 shows the results of seismic P-wave statistics. Red columns
mark the prevalence of seismic velocities before the cement injection
process, and green columns mark the results after the cement

Fig. 17. The location of GPR Prole 6 is given in Fig. 16. The records of 400 MHz antenna are given on the top while the records of 900 MHz antenna are given on the bottom. The orange
colored line shows the border of the two buildings (wall of the city hall and the re tower's stone wall).

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89

Fig. 18. Seismic measurement in the re tower is given on the left. One of the seismic records used for obtaining P-wave velocities is given on the right. The green line indicates the location
of the rst break.

injection process. The dark green colors denote the velocity distribution both before and after the cement injection. The change of the
P-wave velocity in the inner walls before and after the cement

injection process is about 20%40%. The seismic survey shows us

that there is a noticeable rising of the P-wave velocities that can be
observed after the cement injection process. The results of this

Fig. 19. The prevalence of P-wave velocity distribution of the inner walls. The inner wall of the museum is given on the left and the inner wall of the city hall is given on the right. The red
colored columns indicate the pre-injection process and the green colors indicate the post-injection process. The dark green colors in the gure denote the velocity distribution both before
and after the cement injection.

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process are both supported by and they are also compatible with
the GPR survey. The seismic data can be used as a supplementary
method accompanied by GPR studies.

heritages and, the seismic data can be used as a supplementary method

accompanied by GPR studies for these restoration works.
Acknowledgments

6. Conclusions
The investigated walls of the ancient re tower in Sopron city are
made of various materials. The construction materials used in the re
tower consist mainly of limestone, limestone with sandstone and
some volcanic rocks. The cementation of the walls is of low quality
and there are high amounts of air within the building materials.
Due to the high amounts of air and porous structure of the walls,
huge amounts of cement material are needed to be injected into
the walls for the reinforcement of the tower. There are also several
cracks and voids detected during our measurements.
During the renovation and reinforcement studies of the
ancient re tower of Sopron, Hungary, GPR and seismic based nondestructive investigations were carried out. The measurements
were taken before and after the cement injection process to observe
the changes in the wall structures. Fractured and porous zones are
appointed by the GPR survey, and the zones with high air contents
appeared as strong reections. After the injection, these reections
weakened, and the gaps and cracks were lled with cement. It is
proved that there is a high correlation between the distribution
of the fractured zones and the amount of injected material. The
injection to the wall is sufcient, and thus the zones which are highly
fractured disappeared. During the renovation studies, GPR results
become a guide in planning the injection process. The seismic data
obtained from the survey show that there is also a noticeable rise
in the P-wave velocities observed after the cement injection process
which are about 20%40% when they are compared with the
previous velocity distributions.
The results obtained in this survey show us that GPR based nondestructive geophysical applications are fast, robust, efcient and
reliable methods in the restorations of the structures of the cultural

Author Ali Ismet Kanli was supported by The Division of Scientic

Research Projects of Istanbul University, International Research Projects,
Project number: IRP-27161. This work was also supported by the
Research Fund of Istanbul University, project number UDP-38002. The
authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive remarks
in the preparation of the nal form of the paper.
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