If there is any doubt in your mind about the fastest and most cost-effective way to handle marginal soils, the I-15 project in Salt Lake City, Utah should establish once and for all the obvious advantages of the utilization of Geofoam over ANY OTHER light weight fill or soil treatment approach.

In this massive civil engineering project, over 100,000 cubic yards of EPS Geofoam was used for the following reasons:

• There were delicate utilities, including a major fiber optic bus, passing beneath the area where the highway was to be widened. Even with the use of state of the art single and two stage MSE walls, there were still expected settlements of up to a meter or more.
• There were considerable incentives to the contractor to finish the job on time. There is nothing you can do to marginal soil that is as quiet, as environmentally benign, or as FAST as utilizing geofoam to create a strong and predictable fill.
• The use of Geofoam is NOT expensive, compared to other soil improvement approaches. In fact, it can often be significantly less expensive than traditional soil reinforcement approaches. No wick drains are required. No surcharging is required. No particular weather is required. When you compare the "installed" cost of geofoam to any other approach including surcharging and wick drains, Geofoam wins. And the job is done in less than 1/8th the time required for surcharging.

Access a set of the construction drawings used in the I-15 project.

Learn more about GeoTech's TerraLite™ Geofoam.