DENVER, April 03, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- After attempting to rehabilitate a set of failing bridge embankments using traditional soil stabilization methods, the Texas Department of Transportation initiated a side-by-side comparison of two alternative fills. One embankment was filled with a kiln-processed lightweight clay aggregate and the other solid, lightweight expanded polystyrene Geofoam blocks from ACH Foam Technologies.
“Building roads and bridges is often about solving problems,” says Phillippe Falkner, Operations Manager for Ed Bell Construction, the contractor charged with rehabilitating the bridge and embankments. While the specified lightweight aggregate could only be sourced from a single North Texas manufacturer, Falkner’s options for Geofoam were broad, and since it wasn’t a product he had a lot of experience with he needed more information.
“Geofoam seemed so different from typical roadway building that I needed to know quite a bit more,” Falkner said. He engaged two different Geofoam suppliers to gain as much insight as he could while competitively securing the materials. “The cost between the two suppliers was about the same. The big difference was the technical support ACH Foam Technologies offered.” ACH Foam’s in-house drafters produced shop drawings of the block configuration pattern to fill in the embankment for structural soundness and numbered each block to ensure it was easy to place precisely according to the plan.
Once the bridge was remediated, the embankment trenches were lined with a filter fabric and filled. The lightweight aggregate was unloaded from a dump truck then graded flat. On the Geofoam side, a sand leveling course was put down and the blocks were placed by hand. Customizing blocks to fill in around the superstructure was easy using a hand-held hotwire cutter. More than five years since the original embankments were built, data suggests both alternative fills have performed within TxDOT’s acceptable tolerances; however, the aggregate fill settled slightly more than expected.
Since ACH Foam Technologies’ Foam-Control® Geofoam comes in several different grades, block sizes, and can also contain termite resistant treatment, there are variables that need to be explained when quoting a project. ACH Foam Technologies took the time to explain the differences and developed a series of options which helped Falkner select the right materials for the application.
“The other guy was selling products like a commodity,” says Falkner. “ACH Foam was interested in engineering an appropriate solution as part of the building team.”
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/5d5cfcf6-6286-4e01-9527-5542314d703e
Contact Information:
Mary Burk - mburk@achfoam.com / 303.645.4114
Sean O’Keefe - sean@sokpr.com / 303.668.0717