Interstate 15 Reconstruction – Salt Lake City – Utah DOT/UTA
The Interstate 15 highway project in Salt Lake City, Utah is the largest geofoam EPS project ever done in the U.S. using a staggering 100,000 cubic meters (3.5 million cubic feet) of geofoam EPS.
This is one of the best geofoam EPS projects on the internet concerning design, preperation, geotechnical instumented field analysis, technical information, and installation of geofoam EPS and its requirements. The project objectives involved totally reconstructing a sixteen mile stretch of I-15 and widening the entire roadway from the existing six lanes to the new twelve lane design. In addition to this, erecting 144 “overpass bridge structures” and 160 MSE (mechanically stabilized earth) retaining walls. Geofoam EPS was used mainly for “lightweight embankment fill” and for loose fill above underground utilities such as gas lines, sewer lines, and water lines. The I-15 project lasted about 3.5 years with a price tag of 1.5 billion dollars.
According to Professor Clifton Farnsworth, “geofoam embankments had the best overall settlement performance of the geotechnologies monitored”.