Expanded polystyrene (EPS) geofoam is an interesting area in the fields of geotechnical engineering from past four decades. It is rapidly growing and becoming popular due to its large number of applications as a compressible inclusion, lightweight fill and barrier in various structures. An alternative method for compression and tensile testing of EPS geofoam has been proposed which is comparatively easy in terms of fabricating the test assembly and preparation of test specimens than suggested in other test specifications. In the proposed tensile strength test, the test specimen has thickness of 25 mm with a flat section. In both the alternative tests the results are found to be very much closer to the standard test specification. The study was carried out on available densities of expanded polystyrene (EPS) geofoam are 0.15, 0.20, 0.22 and 0.30 kN/m3 . The experimental results obtained from various test give an idea to about material characteristics of EPS geofoam. The proposed results can be recommended for BIS and IRC code specification.
Prof. J N Mandal