Expanding foundation foam - GIF

[Altair]

Expanding foundation foam.




Previously:

Setting a foundation bracket - GIF
Helical piles - GIF
Mat foundation pouring operation - photo
Pole setting expanding foam - GIF
Concrete foam fill - GIF

[NortonDommi]

Amazing stuff. Around 2009 - 2010 the world famous HundertwasserToilets in Kawakawa were under threat from erosion by the river at the back of the building. I rang the council when I heard about this and I was the 3rd or4th person to call regarding the use of expanding foam to stabilize the embankment and realign the building, I was able to give the guy I spoke to a contact number for a local business,(been on the piss with them a week before).
One thing I will say about Far North councils is that the majority of people they employ are switched on,(not the yea sayers just the actual doers),and after brief public consultation and a fundraising campaign the building was reinstated and future proofed.
Every time I stop for a piss I feel pleased that modern technology if used wisely is a wonderful thing.

[NortonDommi]

https://www.aa.co.nz/travel/editoria...asser-toilets/

[mwmkravchenko]

Worth saving. What a piece of work they are indeed!

[NortonDommi]

Locals are very proud of their loos. No graffiti, no vandalism, clean, functional, useful and everyone walks out smiling. Real happy place.

[nova_robotics]

That stuff's crazy. It's like 5000 - 6000 psf or something.

[mwmkravchenko]

That stuff's crazy. It's like 5000 - 6000 psf or something.

Where did you find this? I can't find any technical data.

[nova_robotics]

Where did you find this? I can't find any technical data.

A structural engineer told me that years ago. I'm just regurgitating what he was saying when he was praising the stuff. But based on what I found below it looks like there are a number of structural foam products that far exceed that number.

Here's the datasheet for (rigid, non-expanding) Corning Foamular boards. They make Foamular 400, 600 and 1000. That corresponds to 40 psi (5760 psf), 60 psi (8640 psf) and 100 psi (14400 psf). They recommend it for under concrete foundations, roadways, airport runways and railbeds.

http://www2.owenscorning.com/worldwi...hDensBro_E.pdf

Here's an expanding foam product called Polylevel. The manufacturer says it's good for almost 6000 psf.

https://www.polylevel.com/technical-information.html

This website says their under-foundation polyurethane expanding foam product is good for 7200 psf, but that website is suspect to me so take it with a grain of salt.

https://www.dalinghausconstruction.c...hane-injection

Here's another one called GeoLift, and it comes in two densities GeoLift 4.0 and GeoLift 6.0. The 4.0 is good for 58 psi (8352 psf) and the 6.0 for 110 psi (15840 psf).

https://huntsmanbuildingsolutions.co...04.0%20TDS.pdf

[mwmkravchenko]

A structural engineer told me that years ago. I'm just regurgitating what he was saying when he was praising the stuff. But based on what I found below it looks like there are a number of structural foam products that far exceed that number.

Here's the datasheet for (rigid, non-expanding) Corning Foamular boards. They make Foamular 400, 600 and 1000. That corresponds to 40 psi (5760 psf), 60 psi (8640 psf) and 100 psi (14400 psf). They recommend it for under concrete foundations, roadways, airport runways and railbeds.

http://www2.owenscorning.com/worldwi...hDensBro_E.pdf

Here's an expanding foam product called Polylevel. The manufacturer says it's good for almost 6000 psf.

https://www.polylevel.com/technical-information.html

This website says their under-foundation polyurethane expanding foam product is good for 7200 psf, but that website is suspect to me so take it with a grain of salt.

https://www.dalinghausconstruction.c...hane-injection

Here's another one called GeoLift, and it comes in two densities GeoLift 4.0 and GeoLift 6.0. The 4.0 is good for 58 psi (8352 psf) and the 6.0 for 110 psi (15840 psf).

https://huntsmanbuildingsolutions.co...04.0%20TDS.pdf

Ok Much less than Concrete. Concrete is 300PSI for non air entrained concrete.

[Frank S]

mwmkravchenko, I'm sure that you living in the land of the frozen north know better than many the problems when dealing with permafrost in that beautiful country. In some regions it may seem like summer will never arrive, then when it does to those who live there at least it may feel as blazingly hot as an equatorial desert at times. The converse is also true to peoples who live in regions where the mean average summer temperature's is well above 40c and summer can last for 9 to 10 months. It is simply unfathomable that the ground could ever become frozen solid.
When we were in the planning stages of a 120,000 cubic meter cold storage unit in Kuwait which a large part of it was to be leased to the US Navy. Having previously worked in areas where cold was an issue causing frost heaving from cold soaking. Our company was bidding on various aspects of the overall project but our scope of the overall project was not all that large at the time. hardly even worth our bidding on any of it. To increase our bidding participation, We sent 2 of our young civil engineers to Switzerland, Norway and Italy to visit similar cold storage projects so they might gain some valuable information. I went to Turkey, Germany Sweden and Holland to Trades shows where I talked with materials manufactures and suppliers. By the time for the sit down at the bidding conference came around the General manager /owner of our company and I were armed to the teeth with enough knowledge to be comfortable in bidding on a much larger scope of the project. Much to the chagrin of the Project manager and his chief civil engineer our input on the aid of prevention of cold soaking the ground underneath the proposed structure was confirmed by the Consulting firm's licensed professional engineer caused a rethink in insulating the foundation and floors of the cold rooms especially since the water table was but a comparatively few meters below the surface. We went from a minor contracting bidder to become a major player in the overall construction of the project. We must have laid enough high-density foam insulation foam batts to fill 25 20 ft containers between the sub foundation and the 20 cm thick floor along with heat matts under the floor at all of the door openings The whole site had to be excavated several meters larger than the completed building would be to a depth of 3 meters moisture preventive measures in the form of bitumen impregnated sheets put in place then the soil kiln dried and compacted back in place before the foundation could even be thought of, which was something the General contractor never forgave us for causing to be done.