Investigation of Compressive Behaviors of Geofoams Made in Vietnam

Abstract

Geofoam or EPS is widely applied to construct highway embankments on soft ground in European countries and the United States of America, but has no practical applications in Vietnam. Compressive strength of Geofoams is the most important properties and has limit research results in Vietnam. The 7 types of EPS geofoams made in Vietnam were selected with mass density varying from 12 to 28 kg/m³ to obtain compressive strength, modulus of elasticity, and poisson’s ratio. Unconfined compressive strength tests were employed to investigate compressive behaviors of Geofoams. The results indicate that the compressive strength increases linearly with increasing the mass density and varying from 30 to 120 kPa. At compressive strain of 2% or less, compressive strength increases sharply and linearly with increasing the vertical loads. The initial modulus also increases linearly with increasing the mass density. The poisson’s ratio is appreciably smaller than data published in the literature.