TOPIC: Bituminous materials

Introduction

Advantages

Uses

Conclusion
It is a well-known fact that road infrastructure is the most important of all public assets due to
different benefits that they provide. Roads make a crucial contribution to economic development
and growth and bring important social benefits. They are of vital importance in order to make a
nation grow and develop. Roads also have a big role to play in construction. Roads open up
more areas, providing direct access to sites that needed to be developed and constructed, and
allows smooth transportation of the materials. In the case of building construction, concrete,
gravel, sand, cement, metal reinforcing bars, etc. are needed to be transported from the
manufacturing plants to the site in order for them to be used. Therefore, it is not wrong to say
that without roads, construction will not be, if not possible, efficient and will be time consuming.
And that makes bituminous materials better than other materials, since they are the most widely
used material in road construction.
The term Bituminous materials is generally used to indicate substances which contains a
substance known as bitumen. According to the American Society of Testing Material (ASTM),
Bitumen is a hydrocarbon material of either natural or pyrogenous origin found in gaseous,
liquid, semi-solid or solid form and is completely soluble in carbon-disulfide and carbon tetra
chloride. For Civil Engineering and road construction applications, Asphalt, which is a dark
brown to black cementitious material in which the predominant constituents are bitumens which
occur in nature or are obtained in the petroleum processing. is the most commonly used
bituminous material.
Since road construction is a very important type of construction, this makes bituminous
materials more important than the other construction materials. Why do engineers use
bituminous materials in making road pavements? Why not use concrete? Or metals? Or plastics
and wood? It is because bituminous materials are much better compared to these materials. It
poses a number of beneficial properties and advantages over other construction materials, not
only in road pavement constructions, but also in other types of applications.
One of the most important and major advantages that bituminous materials have over other
materials is that they are cost efficient when used in high distance applications. This means that
in road construction, they are cheaper to install, low initial costs, and it has high performance.
Since road construction spans great lengths, this makes metals, even though it has very high
strength, unusable since it has a very high cost relative to using other materials. The same goes
for wood. In the case of plastics, its application to road construction is still in development and
under further research, which leads to concrete and bituminous materials the only materials that
can be used in long span applications. According to HomeAdvisor and Sciencing, the average
cost of installing asphalt in the US ranges from 1$ - 5$ per foot installed while concrete can cost
anywhere from 3$-10$ making bituminous materials the cheapest and the most preferred in
high distance applications, especially in road pavements.
In terms of reusability, bituminous materials are also better than other materials. Asphalts, in
general can be reclaimed for the purpose of reconstruction and resurfacing. The reclaimed
asphalt is collected and transported to the nearest asphalt plant or other appropriate location. At
the plant the asphalt can be crushed and the crushed asphalt granules are used for new
asphalt. In many cases milled asphalt can be reused without additional crushing. It is common
to resurface worn out asphalt by milling the top layer, so the new asphalt can be laid on an even
surface. The European Asphalt Pavement Association states that asphalt is one of the most
recycled construction product in Europe making asphalt pavements sustainable. This means
that less bitumen, which is the most expensive component of asphalt, is needed to make new
asphalt pavements, saving many new aggregates. This property beats other construction
materials since metals and concrete are relatively harder to reuse.
Bituminous materials, especially asphalt is fast to construct and to maintain. Compared to
concrete, bituminous materials effectively do not need to be cured. In road construction this is
especially helpful since the roadways can be used as soon as the last roller leaves the
construction zone, resulting in fewer delays. This means that they can be easily opened and
quickly reinstated almost immediately. This is very important for general road maintenance in
order to fix roads for extending the usable life of the structure. According to EAPA, the lack of
pavement joints reduces maintenance requirements. Because asphalt pavements have no joints
to repair and are not affected by freeze- thaw actions, it is much less expensive to maintain.
Also, when cracks appear, they can be relayered by new asphalt. The only disadvantage is that
maintenance costs will be higher than concrete since asphalt requires more regular
maintenance than concrete. But in the case of concrete, if the concrete road cracked or breaks,
the whole concrete slab must be replaced making the overall cost of concrete higher. Directly
quoting the findings provided by the Eurobitume Brochure published in 2011, Asphalt-surfaced
roads are easy to upgrade when traffic volumes rise – the existing surface can easily be
strengthened by applying an overlay or lane widening rather than having to be reconstructed.
This flexibility of application also means that asphalt roads can remain partly open whilst they
are being upgraded, and without the need for long curing periods can be re-opened quickly
helping to keep traffic running. The easy maintenance also makes bituminous materials good
protective linings and waterproofing layers.
Another advantage is that Bituminous materials are durable and can be constructed indefinitely.
This is especially true for asphalts. The paper titled Long-life Asphalt Pavements published in
June 2007 reported that Asphalt pavements are often built using thick base courses for bearing
the main load above an unbound granular layer. Next, a strong-load bearing intermediate
course (binder course) is placed over the base course. The intermediate (binder) course is
followed by a thirty to forty millimetre surface course. The wearing course can last up to 15 - 20
years, depending on the asphalt mixture used. When this wearing course has to be renewed /
replaced, it is milled off, and then reused into a new asphalt layer. Properly designed,
constructed and maintained intermediate and base courses remain strong and viable for many
decades and sometimes without ever needing total reconstruction. This advantage cannot be
found in concrete. As stated earlier, when concrete cracked, the whole pavement must be
replaced.
Bituminous materials are also safer to use especially in road constructions. New asphalt
technology ensures rapid dispersal and drainage of surface water, reducing water spray and
therefore, improving visibility for the driver in wet conditions. The porous asphalt materials
dramatically reduce blinding spray, and by dispersing surface water they also reduce the risk of
aquaplaning and increase the visibility of road markings. The smooth surface of asphalt
provides maximum tire contact with the roadway, increasing skid resistance. The problem with
metals is that they are not porous, and when applied to road construction will result in many
problems such as water drainage and lesser traction when wet. In the case of wood, water will
make it oversaturated, affecting its mechanical properties during rainy seasons. Concrete does
not have these problems but considering the disadvantages stated earlier, bituminous materials
is still superior to concrete.
Bituminous materials are also very versatile. They are not only used in road construction but
also in different fields Aboutcivil.org showed the different applications of bitumen which includes
Hydraulic applications, dam groutings, dam linings, reservoir lining, etc. due to its waterproof
property. Tar can be used as surface paintings and linings.
Since no material is perfect, Bituminous materials also have different limitations such as low
tensile strength, pollution due to hydrocarbons, and many others. But due to its many
advantages that were presented that are beneficial and helpful, especially in road construction,
bituminous materials are superior to other materials. Without roads, construction cannot start.
And in terms of road construction, bituminous materials are cheaper, faster to construct and
maintain, durable, and safer when compared to other materials, making it the most important
materials out of the others.

The importance of road construction has been stressed numerous times in the beginning of this
paper. Even though other construction materials have different advantages of their own, without
roads, construction will not be able to start, thus making them unable to display their different
strengths. And in terms of road construction, other materials cannot compare to bituminous
materials due to the different advantages that they bring. This makes bituminous materials
superior to other materials.