Application of EPS Geofoam: Review

A versatile and cutting-edge solution in the field of civil engineering is geofoam, a lightweight cellular plastic substance. This paper thoroughly overviews geofoam’s uses in various civil engineering applications. Also, this paper demonstrates how geofoam is transformed construction techniques by examining its special qualities, benefits, and difficulties. Geofoam is widely being used successfully throughout the world; few countries among them are Norway, the Netherlands, the USA, Japan, Germany, and Malaysia. The I-15 Project in Salt Lake, Utah, involved the use of 100,000 cubic meters of geofoam. The EPS resins are expanded with the help of expansion agent to get EPS beads, which are then compressed to obtain EPS geofoam blocks. The EPS geofoam blocks are used in various civil engineering applications such as road construction, road embankment, bridge approaches, bridge abutment, retaining walls, slope stabilization, erosion control, pipeline support, rail embankment, landscaping, vibration isolations, thermal insulation, and vegetative green roof. EPS geofoam is a thermoplastic which means it is completely recyclable. EPS geofoam is one of the geosynthetic materials which gains lot attention in the construction industry is due to some of the salient features are 100 times lesser in weight and 10 times lesser in strength compared to soil. Due to the low density and higher strength and damping material property, which makes EPS geofoam is suitable for majority of the applications.