Applications and Prospect of Expanded Polystyrene

 As an excellent filler, expanded polystyrene is widely used in variety of civil engineerings. In our country, expanded polystyrene is mainly used in roads, water and construction projects. This article will firstly talk about the uses of expanded polystyrene, then introduce the prospect of it in the future market.
Applications in Road
Firstly, expanded polystyrene products can be used as fillers for subgrade and embankment. In some soft ground, there often appears problems of uneven subsidence and excessive deposition, which are very annoying. But expanded polystyrene can effectively solve these problems because its small density and high strength. So it can be used as the filler. Expanded polystyrene can also be used for filling of road-bridge transition section. For a long time, the construction of the road-bridge transition section has always been the important and difficult point and it is prone to differential settlement. So expanded polystyrene is widely applied as fillers for abutments and pillars to prevent the bump at bridge-head by using its special properties. Besides, expanded polystyrene also can prevent the road-bed from cold damage. This application is due to EPS insulation. Laying frost protection layer on the top of subgrade is helpful for eliminating cold damage, maintaining stability of line structure and reducing deformation. In short, expanded polystyrene is a very important material which is widely used in road construction.
Applications in Construction Projects
Attaching expanded polystyrene board outside of the building and pasting the reinforcing glass fiber mesh cloth then painting decorative and protective surface layer, through these procedures can enable the building stay warm. Besides, expanded polystyrene products guarantee the good economic returns, simple construction, low cost and make sure the building be beautiful and practical. In addition, expanded polystyrene also can be used for roof insulation. Generally speaking, traditional insulation structure is very likely to cause cracking, which is due to the waterproof and UV resistance of materials are not good. So these materials are very easy to lose heat insulation performance. However, expanded polystyrene can deal with this problem easily. Approaches for using EPS for roof insulation are as follows. Firstly, do the leveling layer on the roof and do the waterproof layer and then do expanded polystyrene board. At last we can spread a layer of non-woven holes and then a layer of overburden pressure such as pebbles. This method takes full advantage of the durability and water resistance of the EPS, achieving long-term waterproof function and prolonging the useful life of the material to ensure the roof insulation effect.
Prospect of Expanded Polystyrene
Admittedly, the current application of the EPS still exist some bottlenecks, such as a low level of technological development, too many fraud products, remaining improvements of its performances of long-term load and durability. Therefore, the future expanded polystyrene should be developed in the direction of low price, high strength, light weight and have good physical and chemical properties. At the same time, we have to overcome the current limitations in various engineering fields of expanded polystyrene. In addition, expanded polystyrene will broaden the application areas, and even replace some traditional fillers and civil engineering materials to become a leading engineering materials.