As a citizen of the greatest country in the world, my first inclination about the history of EPS Geofoam was that we Americans invented it. Not so. EPS Geofoam was first used in Norway in 1972. It seems that much of the terrain of Norway is comprised of precarious ground. In fact, the first project was a small bridge known as Flom Bridge, in Oslo. The picture below shows how soft and volatile the soil compression is. This snippet of a video produced in the 1972 project shows an engineer shifting his weight from foot to foot, and the ground beneath him is compressible clay over peat moss, not a very good situation on which to build roads.

Engineers attempted to utilize Geofoam as a subsoil void filler. Geofoam is at least 10% the weight of compacted soil.

Prior to installing geofoam, this area experienced 20–30 centimeters of settlement annually causing extreme roadway damage.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geofoam

The original thoughts on the use of large blocks of EPS Geofoam came about by stacking sheets of the material high enough to provide stability needed to withstand the harsh weather, poor soil and subsoil composition, and the rolling nature of Norway’s roadways. Block production evolved and is still made in multiple thicknesses, and sizes.

One would think that engineers from the USA would have taken notice of this breakthrough in construction methods, but no. Japan’s capital city, Tokyo would become the next major project recorded. Haneda Airport (Tokyo International Airport) required major runway expansion, and EPS Geofoam was ideally suited to complete the task in record time, with significant savings over the cost of soil void fill.

The first US project using EPS Geofoam was in Colorado in 1989. That’s seventeen years before Geofoam was considered satisfactory for embankment support and roadbed.

To touch on how impactful Geofoam was on Japanese engineers, it’s remarkable that within a two-year period, 1985 – 1987, more than 2000 projects included 46 million square feet of Geofoam. Wow!

A stretch of Highway 160 between Durango and Mancos experienced a slope destabilization, resulting in a landslide. EPS Geofoam proved itself in not only supporting and stabilizing the embankment but saved time and money. Engineers across the country are now both knowledgeable and utilizing EPS Geofoam to cut construction time and money.