Manufacturing Quality Investigation of EPS Block with Homogeous Test

Lee-kuo Lin 1
Associate Professor
Civil Engineering Department
National Taipei University of
Technology
Taipei City ,Taiwan, R.O.C.

Kenji Sasaki 2
Manager of
Overseas Marketing Project Team
SEKISUI PLASTICS CO,. LTD.
Tokyo City , Japan.

Shang-Juin Chiou3
Graduate Student
Civil Engineering Department
National Taipei University of
Technology
Taipei City ,Taiwan, R.O.C.

ABSTRACT
EPS light-weight embankment method is a kind of construction method which is used
pieces of EPS blocks to stack up as a sequence of geofoam embankment. EPS block is made
from styrene particles through the process of foaming, pressuring and heating. If quality of EPS
block production is not good enough, it will make the EPS block damage due to un-uniform
deformation. Therefore, if using poor quality of EPS blocks as the road sub-grade embankment,
it will have a serious problem. This study focuses on EPS block productions of Taiwan and Japan
to do uniformity analysis and comparison. Because Japan has considerable experience in EPS
technology, so in this study, Japanese EPS block would be the comparison object to understand
the difference of the quality EPS manufacturing between Taiwan and Japan.
The study transmits two 20kgf/m3 (20K) EPS blocks with dimension of 2m1m0.5m
from Japan to Taiwan, then makes homogenous test of these two samples. The same testing
process is made for Taiwanes EPS samples. After comparison and analysis of the measured data,
uniformity quality of EPS productions are feedbacked to those Japanese and Taiwanes
manufacture firms.
KeywordEPS, geofoam, manufacturing, homogeous, uniformity test

I. PREFACE
Taiwan has a harsh natural environment and high population in a slender area. In recently
years, economics of urban area are rised up, civilizans move to develop the suburban or
mountain area. Meanwhile, Taiwan is located at the Circum-Pacific seismic zone and
sub-tropical humid climate of special geographical place, such situation casued that Taiwan is a
country with frequent earthquakes in the world [1]. Due to high annual rainfall, it arouses
landslide or debris-flow frequently happened. After the 921 Gigi earthquake which was
happened in 1999, mountains of Taiwan generally have potential hazard of sliding and falling
rocks to launch the debris flow disaster. Due to the mount of natural disasters, it makes Taiwan
urgently needed to develop better disaster prevention system than other countries.
EPS is the generic abbreviation of Expandable Poly-Styrolene, its refining liquid-mononer
styrene from petroleum, re-synthesis to solid polystyrene, after mixed vesicant in accordance
with the pressure tube to cylinder pressure and temperature, put foaming material into casting
mold pressurize and heating to the melting point to make the EPS block [2, 3]. Because there are
lots of characteristics with EPS, such as light weight, impact absorbon, self-supporting, water
resistance, insulation, easy construction and other features [1, 4], EPS is also called the geofoam
1

due to it is often used to replace the embankment material in civil engineering (Figure 1).

Figure 1. EPS embackment in Taiwan

EPS light-weight embankment method is one kind of construction method which is used by
pieces of EPS blocks to stack up as a sequence of embankment. If quality of EPS block
production is not qualified, there will be problems of unhomogeous foam particles and will make
the EPS block in the pressure generated to damage (Figure 2). This study focuses on EPS blocks
manufacturing production in Taiwan and Japan to do uniformity analysis and comparison, then
feedbacks the experimental result to EPS suppliers. Because there has considerable experience of
EPS technology in Japan, two 20 kgf/m3 EPS blocks supplied from the Sekisui Plastics
Company will be used as the compared object of this study. It is looking forward to the result of
this research that can promote the quality of EPS manufacturing and disaster prevention in the
domestic construction industry and engineering applications.

Figure 2. Road damaged due to poor EPS quality

II. EPS MAUNFACTURING PROCESS

Polymer plastic raw materials are extracted from crude oil distillation and oil/gas
separation process mainly. EPS is one of its derivatives. The refining process produces 96% of
products are supplied to non-oil fuel vehicles and machines. The plastics material derived from
the refining process accounts for about 4% of products, and EPS products accounts for only
0.1% (Figure 3). In Taiwan, ablock of EPS is made from particles of polystyrene (PS) being
expanded and melted in an automatic mold by adding steam. Expanded polystyrene is created
during a two-stage process. In the first stage, expandable polystyrene resin is pre-expanded by
a hydrocarbon-blowing agent that is contained within tiny resin beads. When the beads are
exposed to steam, the polymer softens and the blowing agent expands, creating a cellular
structure within the "pre-puff" beads (Figure 4)[5]. After a short stabilization period, the pre-puff
is placed in a large rectangular block mold and steam is injected into the mold. Under such heat
and pressure, the beads further expand and use to form a molded block [3](Figure 5). The result
is a white, synthetic material that has a texture of closed, gas filled cells. Individual cells, or
beads, are still visible after the molding process, but the beads have coalesced, to form a closed
fabric, with essentially no void between the cells [2](Figure 6). The process can be done by an
EPS manufacturer. There are 18 EPS manufacturers in Taiwan. In this research 8 of those EPS
manufacturers were visited, then the complete manufacturing process were derived as shown in
Figure 7.
Crude
oil

Distillation

Fuels

Ethanes
Fuel oils
Gasoline
Liquid
Natural gas

Hydrocarbon
Separation

Other
Derivatives

Alkenes
Wax
Sulfuric acid
Asphalt
Sulfur or

Diesel fuel
Jet fuel
Kerosene
Petroleum gas

Generally used in transportation,

power
plants and heating. Normally results
in
the destruction of the material while
generating energy.

Lubricants
Paraffin wax
Bulk tar
Petroleum
Coke

Over 4000 products, compounds

through polymerisation processes,
motor oils and greases, acids and
further derivatives

Plastics
4%
Others
96%
EPS
01%

Figure 3. Crude oil refining process and product [6]

(b) Optical microscope picture of EPS pre-puff

beads
Figure 4. Pictures of PS and EPS Beads

(a) Beads of PS and EPS

PolyStyrene
Raw
Material

Second Amatured and

Dried

First Expanded

First Amatured and

Dried

Second Expanded

Figure 5. EPS expended process [6]

Figure 6. Optical microscope picture of EPS

Mold Produing

EPS Block

Figure 7. The flow chart of EPS manufacture

In Japan, the first step of EPS production process is to foam the PS particle once, foaming
rate is 5 times to 100 times, then placed at the silo for one day. After that, feeded into molding
machine to foam EPS block by high temperature and high pressure extrusion [7]. The
manufacturing process is shown in Figure 8. After EPS block shaping printed EPS block on
number and date and put into dry room for 7 days. Then measured weight and size, randomly
sampling of 1 / 100 individuals after cutting proceed compression strength tests and fire test,
confirm the quality of blocks will be kept to a shipping warehouse. Japanese EPS blocks have
been recognized quality standard by EPS development institutions. Figure 9 is for the Japanese
engineering backfill with EPS, the EPS block have been marked exclusive sign.
Close mold,
Close mold, Filled with air
foam

bloeback

Filling tube or Machine residual foam particles back into

the hopper

Mold
heating

Steam pipe to remove water in the mold and raise

the temperature

Heating

Through the steam to promote the integration of

secondary foam

Behind sides
heating
Two sides
heating

Promote the product surface extension

Exhaust

Pressure release

Water
cooling

Make mold cooling

Vacuum
cooling

Making water to evaporate, the foam pressure drop

down

Separated from
the mold

pressurized air, so that products from the mold

release

Eject

Using EJECT PIN to remove products after

extrusion

Figure 9. Japanese quality certification of

EPS block

Figure 8. EPS block manufacturing flow

chart in Japan

The material characteristics of EPS are including the following[5, 7, 8]:

(1) Lightweight: the density of EPS is only 1/100 of sand, it is enough to support soft
domain foundation.
(2) Economical: short duration, space saving, less excavation, low maintance and lower
total cost.
(3) Easily for construction: large machines do not needed only manpower is required.
(4) Self-supporting: low Poisson ratio, high self-supporting can reduce lateral soil pressure,
suitable for use in construction of retaining backfill material.
(5) Excellent impact absorption: EPS with less impact and shock effect.
(6) Water resistance: foaming material is hard to absorb water and not easy to distort.
The material characteristics of EPS can be used in many ways of engineering applications
and it can become substitute to instead of sand for the backfill material [9].

III. HOMOGEOUS TEST of EPS BLOCKS

The concept of EPS homogenous test is launched from the first author in 2010 [5]. For
the testing process, the first step is to cut the EPS block into cube of 10cm10cm10cm then
tag number on cube specimens. In this research, the main experiment divides into uniformity test
of EPS specimens, physical properties test and impacting test. Physical properties test include the
compressive strength, water absorption and hardness. The main purpose of the experiment is to
compare quality of EPS production between Taiwan and Japan, then provides Taiwans EPS
manufacturers to improve quality control of their processes in advanced. In this research, the
testing process is shown in Figure 10.
Experimental
planning
Cutting block

Homogeous
property test

Physical properties
test

Water
absorption

Compression
test

Hardness test

Data verification and

analysis

Figure 10. Experimental flow chart

VI. EPS BLOCK PREPARING and CUTTING PROCESSES

Measured all EPS blocks length, width and height, the result is shown in Table 1; then cut
each block into 10cm x 10cm x10cm cube, and marked by alphabetical in each plane (Table 2),
such coding marked on the specimen is used to indentify and analyze after the measurement.
Table 1. Size of test materials

Table 2. Code of materials

The preparing and cutting steps are explaned as below:

1. Marked the relative position between EPS block and mold in the manufacture firm.
2. Measured dimension of EPS block, including length width and height, then measured
the weight of the entire EPS block, from the recorded data to calculate its unit weight (K
value).
3. In accordance with EPS blocks length, width and height planned to cut the size of each
side, using ruler to draw the cutting line on each plane, then marked A1, A2 , A3.etc.
in sequence on the first cutting surface.
4. After marked number, put the first cutting surface on the cutter sequentially cut into 10
cm3 specimens.
5. Similar with step 3 and step 4, marked and cut B1, B2 , B3.etc. In sequence on the
second cutting surface.
6. Repeat step 5 to step 6, until all specimens were cut completely.

V. HOMOGEOUS TEST and ANALYSIS

In order to identify homogenous situation of the EPS block after foamed. Such activity can
avoid the engineering damage happened due to EPS inner defect once used the EPS material as
an embankment backfill. If the EPS production process has good and uniform quality, the unit
weight (K value) of EPS block before cutting should be the same with 10 cm3 small cube
specimen after cutting. If it has different result, it will mean that there is non-uniform problem in
the EPS molding process. In this study, tools of electronic scale and cursor caliper are used to
measure every cubes weight and volume. According to EPS suppliers specification, the
standard of unit weight is 0.2kN/m3 (+0.015/-0.01). Table3 is the measured result of unit weight
with Japanese EPS and Table4 is part of Taiwanese result.

Table 3. Part of measured result of unit weight with Japanese specimens

Number

Weight
(g)

Length
(cm)

Wide
(cm)

Height
(cm)

Volume
(cm3)

Unit
weight(kN/m3)

Difference
(+0.015/-0.01)

C2-20
C9-20
G2-20
H2-20
H3-20
H5-20
H9-20
I10-12
I10-13
I10-14

17.88
18.19
18.8
18.77
18.54
18.84
18.38
19.78
20.02
20.01

9.846
9.889
9.923
9.854
9.858
9.866
9.873
9.075
9.117
9.017

8.209
9.809
9.994
9.837
8.403
9.828
8.442
9.873
9.861
9.853

9.874
8.342
8.448
8.359
9.827
8.462
9.815
9.883
9.868
9.888

798.07
809.18
837.79
810.26
814.03
820.50
818.05
885.49
887.16
878.49

0.219
0.220
0.219
0.227
0.223
0.225
0.220
0.218
0.221
0.223

+0.019
+0.020
+0.019
+0.027
+0.023
+0.025
+0.020
+0.018
+0.021
+0.023

Table 4. Part of measured result of unit weight with Taiwanese specimens

Number

Weight
(g)

Length
(cm)

Wide
(cm)

Height
(cm)

Volume
(cm3)

Unit
weight(kN/m3)

K1-18
K10-18
O1-1
O6-6
O6-8
O6-9
O6-10
O10-1

22.03
22.25
21.87
19.01
18.95
18.66
18.94
21.78

9.994
10.061
9.927
9.847
9.85
9.895
9.849
9.895

9.848
9.928
10.152
10.124
10.116
10.109
10.117
10.1

10.119
10.148
9.882
9.895
9.877
9.891
9.88
9.903

995.92
1013.63
995.89
986.44
984.17
989.38
984.46
989.70

0.2168649
0.2152021
0.215
0.188
0.188
0.184
0.188
0.215

Difference
(+0.015/-0.01)
+0.0168
+0.0152
+0.015
-0.011
-0.011
-0.015
-0.011
+0.015

VI. CONCLUSIONS
Two Japanese EPS blocks were cut to 2000 cubes and had 10 cubes non-compliance with
the standard. The location of the failed cubes are shown in Figure 9 and Figure 10; These 10
specimens do not meet specifications, but all of these are higher than 0.215 kN/m3 .
Two Taiwanese EPS blocks were cut to 1080 cubes and had 557 cubes non-compliance
with standard. Meanwhile, there are 6 cubes density are lower than 0.199kN/m3 (Figure 11).
The testing result shows that homogeneity quality of Taiwanese EPS blocks qualification rate is
only about 48%.

Figure 9. Japanese D-20 (1) locations of

Figure 10. Japanese D-20 (2) locations of

failure

failure

Figure 11. Taiwanese D-20 locations of failure

Based on this study, homogeneity of the Japanese EPS is up to 99.5% passing rate, 10 failure of
the unit weight was higher than 0.215 kN/m3 . Taiwan is only 48.4% pass rate, the studying result
shows that Taiwan EPS manufacture quality still need to be improved.
This study uses heated 0.3mm Nickel-chromium wire to cut EPS specimens, Table 5 shows the
consumption rate of Taiwanese and Japanese EPS blocks. The consumption rate of Taiwan is up to
27.51% because the size of Taiwanese EPS is 184cm101cm67cm, but this study needs
10cm10cm10cm cube specimen, so Taiwanese EPS block just can cut to 180cm100cm60cm,
Therefore the consumption will be high.
Table 5. Consumption rate of cutting procedure
Test materials
Japan D-20(1)
Japan D-20(2)
Taiwan 20K

Total of
Weight(kg) specimens Consumption(%)
weight(kg)
20.68
19.49
5.74%
20.58
19.35
5.98%
26.69
23.44
27.51%

VII. REFERENCES
1. Lin Lee-kuo, The Supplying Condition of Aggregate and Application of EPS Construction Method
in Taiwan. Proceedings of Conference on New Technique in Geotechnical Engineering. Taiwan,
R.O.C. p.1-17, 1998.
2. Bartlett S. Design of Geofoam Embankment for the I-15 Reconstruction. Proceedings of the
Technique Conference of EPS Construction. p.10-1-10-10, 2000.
3. Negussey D. Properties and applications of Geofoam. Society of the Plastics Industry, Washington,
D.C., 1997.
4. Frydenlund TE and Aaboe R. Expanded Polystyrene -The Light Solution. Proceedings of the
International Symposium on EPS Construction Method, Tokyo, JP. p.383-388, 1996.
5. Lin Lee-kuo, Ch Li-hsie and Roger H. L. Chen, 2010.02, Evaluation of Geofoam as a
Geotechnical Construction Material, ASCE Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering, J. Mat. In
Civ. Engrgr. Volume 22, Issue 2, p.160-170, February 2010.
6. Lin Lee-kuo, Geofoam Practices in the use of the road slope, automation, efficiency and chemical
methods and technologies applied to road side workshop, 1996.
7. Miki G. EPS Construction Method in Japan. Proceedings of the International Symposium on EPS
Construction Method, Tokyo, JP, p.1-7, 1996.
8. Huang Bo-Wei, EPS Applicability of Disaster Prevention, National Taipei University of Technology,
Master paper, 2003
9. Cheng Cho-Jen, Simulation and Analysis of EPS Impaction Test, National Taipei University of
Technology, Master paper, 2010.
10. Duskov M. EPS as A Lightweight Sub-base Material in Pavement Structures. Ph.D. Thesis. Delft
University of Technology, Netherlands, 1997.
11. Aaboe R. Evidence of EPS long-term performance and durability as a light weigh fill. Proceedings
of the Transportation Research Board 79th Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. p.21-27, 2000.
12. Horvath JS. Geofoam Geosynthetic: Past, Present, and Future. Electronic Journal of Geotechnical
Engineer, p.25-27, 1996.
13. Horvath JS. Geofoam Geosynthetic. Horvath Engineering PC. Scarsdale, NY, 1995.
14. Norwegian Road Research Laboratory. Expanded Polystyrene Used in Road Embankments: Design,
Construction and Quality Assurance. Form 482E. Oslo. 1992.

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