Vancouver highway project blazes trail for seismic standards
May 31, 2013 Journal of Commerce
Abstract
The Port Mann Highway 1 (PMH1) Improvement Project is blazing trails to higher seismic standards for embankment construction using expanded polystyrene (EPS) blocks. EPS is widely used on the PMH1, which is a design-build project. It cuts lengthy pre-load times on poor ground soils.
“Basically, there are not a lot of guidelines for designing embankments and there is no actual code,” said structure engineer and seismic consultant Marc Gerin, now living in Ottawa.