Asphalt

Today’s agenda
 Physical properties
 Production
 Major & minor uses
 Composition
 Specifications
 Types

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 Properties/Production
Physical properties
1. Semi solid or highly viscous liquid
2. Ductile
3. Black in color
Production
 Produced as a residual product from the
vacuum distillation column

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Main Use: Road Paving

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 Minor Uses
1. Battery bodies
2. Pipe coating
3. Asphalt tiles
4. Insulation in roofs

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 Composition
Composition of asphalt is very complex but we
can say that it is an emulsified mixture of 3 main
constituents which are:
Asphaltenes
I. Hard solid particles
II. Very dark in color
III. Cannot be melted by heating
Liquid oil
Highly viscous oil

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 Continue Composition
Resins
I. Highly polymerized or oxidized hydrocarbons
II. Pale brown in color
III. Elastic
IV. Have a good binding power
As resins have a good binding power, they are
responsible for bonding all the constituents
together.

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 Definition
So from the previous information we can say that
asphalt could be defined as homogenous mixture
of highly viscous oil and asphaltic particles
emulsified together by the assistance of resins

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 Fuel oil versus Asphalt
As we know, asphalt is produced from vacuum distillation of fuel oil, so we
can compare between fuel oil and asphalt as follows:

Criteria Fuel oil Asphalt

Name Long residue Short residue
Production As a residual product from the As a residual product from
atmospheric distillation of crude the vacuum distillation of
oil fuel oil
Resins Lower amount of resins High amount of resins
amount
Liquid Higher Lower
amount
State Semi fluid Semi solid

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 Properties/Specifications
In this section, we will study three important
properties or specifications of asphalt which are:
1. Penetration
2. Softening point
3. Ductility

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 1-Penetration
 Penetration is defined as the distance
"measured in tenth of mm", which a standard
needle having a load of 100 grams can penetrate
for a period of 5 seconds into the sample, often
kept at 25 C
Penetration of asphalt is a measure of its
hardness, as long as the hardness increase, the
needle's penetration decreases and visa-versa
Incase of hard asphalt, penetration is very low
and can be ZERO
Incase of soft asphalt, penetration can reach 300 10
Device used

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 Importance of penetration
Imagine that the asphalt you are riding on is very
soft, your car might penetrate it, so before doing
the road paving, we must be sure that the
hardness of asphalt is suitable to withstand the
stresses of the cars above it without being
penetrated
 Note
1 PEN = 0.1mm

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 2-Softening point
Softening point is defined as the temperature at
which the asphalt attains a certain degree of
softening
Softening point is measured using an apparatus
called ring and ball test
 The softening point maybe considered roughly
as the temperature at which the penetration is
800, 800 PEN means 80 mm means 8 cm

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Device used

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 3-Ductility
The ductility is defined as the maximum length to
which a standard molded sample could be pulled
without breaking
This property is measured using an apparatus
called ductilometer

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Device used

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Starting Point & End Point

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 Types of Asphalt
Criteria Straight run asphalt Air blown asphalt
Production Produced directly from Straight run asphalt is
the vacuum distillation heated to liquid state
of the long residue and a stream of
pressurized hot air is
passed through it
Resins amount Lower Higher as hot air
oxidizes part of the oil
giving resins
Hardness and softness More soft More hard
For road paving(main Can be too soft and thus As this type is harder, it
use) can buckle under the is suitable for road
effect of load and heat paving and there is no
fear from buckling
problem

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 Cut Back Asphalt
 Sometimes you want to have soft asphalt during
handling and operation of road paving, so cut back
asphalt is produced
 Obtained by blending asphalt with lighter fraction
such as kerosene
 Easier to spray and handle in paving processes
 Light fractions then evaporate leaving asphalt on the
ground
 As the solvent blended with asphalt is lighter, it will
evaporate faster and curing time will be shorter
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Cut Back Asphalt

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