Expanded Polystyrene in Soil Reinforcement

The design and execution of works on soft soils represent high complexity and challenges to geotechnicians, since these soils have low bearing capacity. Traditional construction methods require total or partial replacement of low resistance soil by soil with good bearing capacity; sometimes it is possible to construct lateral equilibrium berms; or to construct vertical drains that help accelerate the densification of the massif. These methods generally require large soil movements and require a lot of time to run, sometimes requiring areas for disposal and deposits. This work aims to study the use of the constructive method of lightweight embankments, which minimizes the impacts caused by traditional methods, by using expanded polystyrene (EPS) as the main component. The main focus of this work is the case study of the construction of a viaduct on top of embankment in EPS blocks in the municipality of Jundiaí, state of São Paulo, Brazil, comparing the method used with the traditional method of lateral equilibrium berms. During the visit to the work, already completed, presented in the case study, no pathologies were found, showing that the EPS method has potential for use.