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Grades of bitumen
Bitumen is a natural or synthetic material that is distilled as a result of natural environmental processes or from crude oil distillation residue.
Synthetic bitumen is refined into several grades based on a variety of parameters such as viscosity grade (denoted as VG grade bitumen) and penetration.
Each bitumen grade is intended for a certain industry area.
In more delicate businesses, selecting a suitable grade is critical.
The primary application of bitumen is in road construction, where the quality of bitumen used in the process receives little attention.
However, careful bitumen grade selection is required to avoid certain faults and pavement damage.
Each grade is appropriate for specific weather conditions and temperatures and must be chosen with caution.
Thus, bitumen grades are important before starting any production or process.
The key factor that determines this grade is the stiffness of bitumen at a certain temperature.
The stiffness is determined by several tests that are performed on the sample of bitumen at a specific temperature of 25 degrees.
This type of testing has been used to determine the resistance of bitumen to thermal cracking.
Thermal cracking occurs when the bitumen's surface becomes physically damaged due to heat and frequent friction.
It is believed that bitumen with greater heat cracking resistance will be of higher quality.
The resistance of bitumen to heat cracking is determined by several factors, including its origin and the refinement procedure utilized.
Viscosity grades of bitumen are VG 10, VG 20, VG 30, and VG 40 and common penetration grades are 60/70, 50/70, 80/100.
Lower grades are often suitable for lighter applications such as spraying and coating applications and higher grades are utilized in road construction.
bitumen pen grades
One of the most common methods to classify bitumen is the penetration grade.
Penetration is in fact a test performed on a sample of bitumen at 25 degrees temperature.
The penetration rate is measured by the amount that the needle penetrates in the bitumen.
however, penetration is not the only test that is performed on the bitumen.
tests such as softening point, viscosity, ductility, and flash point are among the other tests that are performed to provide the specifications of a bitumen grade.
The penetration grades start from 30/40 and continue to 40/50, 50/70, 60/70, 80/100, and 100/120.
Each penetration is suitable for a specific application and industry.
Using the most suitable penetration grade according to your desired application results in the best outcome.
Among all the penetration grades, bitumen 60/70 is the most used grade as it is suitable for road construction.
Road construction is the biggest application sector where bitumen is used.
This grade of bitumen is known to be the most durable and cost-effective bitumen for this usage.
Also, this grade of bitumen is the purest form of bitumen and is obtained directly from a distillation column in which crude oil is processed, so no further processing is required, and can be used directly.
As a result, other types of bitumen are priced based on bitumen 60/70.
Bitumen grade 60/70 has a moderate hardness, which means it is neither too hard nor too soft.
This grade of penetration bitumen is preferred due to its resistance to temperature changes.
As a result, it is an excellent choice for road construction in many regions, particularly Asia and South-East Africa.
Penetration-grade bitumen can also sometimes be mixed with some polymer or other additives such as gilsonite to enhance the properties of the pavement mix.
The additives must be carefully selected because they can both reinforce the quality or reduce it.
Other penetration grades are used in other industries such as roofing, coating, and sealing.
bitumen viscosity grade
viscosity is in fact the amount of fluidity of a material.
bitumen viscosity also determines the ability of the bitumen to flow at a specific temperature.
The higher the viscosity grade the harder the bitumen.
in viscosity grading, the tests are conducted at 60 and 135 degrees to represent the temperature of the road surface while paving and construction.
Older residual samples or initial asphalt binder samples can also be used for viscosity grading.
This is also known as AC grading.
The aged residue from the rolling thin film oven test is used as the basis for the AR viscosity test.
When using AC grading, the asphalt binder is assessed according to the qualities it holds prior to being manufactured into hot mix asphalt or HMA.
Since the AR grading system tries to imitate the properties of asphalt binder after it goes through a normal hot mix asphalt manufacturing process, it ought to be more accurate in describing how asphalt binder behaves in hot mix pavements.
When assessing penetration grade and viscosity, several key issues are addressed, including:
- Switching from the present penetration-graded standard (based on penetration at 25 °C) to a viscosity-graded bitumen requirement (based on viscosity at 60 °C) improves performance at high temperatures.
- A minimum viscosity requirement of 135°C will aid in reducing the issues connected with compaction that tender asphalt mixtures cause when they push and shove against the roller wheels.
- Using viscosity-graded paving bitumen specifications will reduce the total number of tests to 7, and no new tests will be required in order to put this specification into effect.
Viscosity grading is also more difficult and costly than penetration grading.
The apparatus for penetration testing is widely available and the test is performed with much more ease.
Viscosity grade bitumen is classified into VG 10, VG 20, VG 30, and VG 40.
If one wants to compare the viscosity grade with the penetration grade, VG 10 bitumen equals 80/100 penetration grade, VG 30 to 60/70, and VG 40 to 30/40 or 40/50.
As bitumen 60/70 is widely used in road construction, VG 30 bitumen is also widely used in the road construction industry.
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