Local manufacturing company Foamex has won a $1.4 million contract to supply Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) blocks for the West Gate Tunnel Project in Melbourne.

 Foamex manufactures the S Grade Polystyrene it is supplying to the West Gate Tunnel Project at its facility in Baywater in Melbourne’s east.

“EPS has great tensile strength which gives it the ability to resist loads without failure because of excessive stress or deformation,” says Foamex general manager Justin Kelsey. “This is why it is very commonly used within large construction projects.”

Kelsey explained how his team custom-cut the EPS to meet the project’s specifications in an article published at Roads and Infrastructure Australia.

“For this particular job, there was a requirement for the EPS to fit within bridge cages. To do this, we needed to hot-wire profile the block so that the exact profile dimensions are achieved,” he says.

“Our state-of-the-art equipment enabled us to create the customised profiles that also have excellent yield. This means there is very little wastage making it cost effective while meeting the brief and engineering specifications required.”

The use of Foamex EPS blocks reduces the amount of emissions-heavy concrete used in the bridge’s construction. “A lot of people aren’t aware that the production and use of concrete is the third largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world and its use continues to grow around the world,” Kelsey says.