EVALUATION OF CRACKS IN THE CĂRPINIȘ TRAVERTINE QUARRY USING GROUND PENETRATING RADAR

The purpose of this work is to analyse the cracks in a test area of the Cărpiniș travertine quarry, based on investigations by the Ground Penetration Radar method. These analyses are part of an ERA-MIN project entitled "Artificial Intelligence and combined survey techniques for the optimization of stone quarries", acronym AI-COSTSQO, ongoing with partners from Turkey, Italy, Slovenia and Romania. Data collection was carried out with AKULA 9000C equipment, on profiles with 1m equidistant, both longitudinally and transversely. The data were collected on the Cărpiniș quarry, in three sites that were chosen according to dimensions, quarry position and geotechnical rock properties. Also, data were collected according to visible natural discontinuities, including their orientation, spacing, span and length. The data were processed to calculate the orientation and position of natural discontinuities in depth. This information will be used to identify the optimal cutting directions in the marble blocks. Mathematical model development, based on cracks detected in the quarry, will take into account the minimum and maximum limits of the cuboids, the polyhedrons and commercial volumes, but also joints and cracks in the rock.