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Stiffness of Expanded Polystyrene Foam for Different Stress States

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Abstract

This paper examined the stiffness of expanded polystyrene foam (EPS) with monotonic and cyclic loading under different stress states. The test program was performed for monotonic loading and cyclic loading. The stiffness of geofoam subjected to monotonic loading increased with increasing density. The solid skeleton empirical equation was proposed to predict the geofoam modulus with different densities. The distortional ratio of the EPS decreased with reduced density and increased stress ratio and substantially decreased when the stress was above the elastic limit. The dynamic modulus was higher than the initial modulus with a low stress ratio and began lower than the initial modulus when the stress ratio was over 0.9. The dynamic modulus of the geofoam substantially increased with increasing density and slightly decreased with increasing stress ratio and decreasing load frequency. The proposed empirical equation can reasonably predict the dynamic EPS stiffness with varying densities, stress ratios and loading frequencies.

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Acknowledgements

This research was sponsored by the Department of Highway (DOH) of Thailand. The authors would like to thank the members of the Geotechnical Laboratory for their support in carrying out the laboratory experiments at King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Thailand.

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  1. Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Thung Khru, Bangkok, Thailand

    Attapole Malai & Sompote Youwai

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  1. Attapole Malai
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Contributions

All the authors have made substantial contributions to the article and take full responsibility for its content. All those who have made substantial contributions to the article have been named authors. AM: Conceptualization, Study conception and design, Material preparation, Experiment work, Interpretation of data, Data collection and analysis, Written the first draft of the manuscript. SY: Analysis data collection, Commented on the manuscript, Investigation and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Attapole Malai.

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Malai, A., Youwai, S. Stiffness of Expanded Polystyrene Foam for Different Stress States. Int. J. of Geosynth. and Ground Eng. 7, 80 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40891-021-00321-7

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