Bituminous Materials

Bituminous Materials are of different types. Bituminous Materials is available in a variety of types and grades. The different types of Bituminous Materials are explaining in this post.

Bituminous Materials

The different types of Bituminous Materials are

1. Asphalt
2. Bitumen
3. Cutback Bitumen
4. Bitumen Emulsion
5. Tar

1. Asphalt

It is a mechanical mixture of inter mineral matter. There are two categories of asphalt, they are (a) Natural Asphalt and (b) Residual asphalt. The natural asphalt obtains naturally. The residual asphalt occurs by fractional distillation of crude petroleum oil with an asphalt base.

2. Bitumen

It is a complex organic material occurs naturally and artificially at the distillation of petroleum. These bitumen posses some desirable properties. They are,

• Durability
• Good adhesion with aggregate
• Better compaction and
• Easy mixability

3. Cutback Bitumen

Bitumen mix with a volatile solvent is cutback bitumen. This enables its application considerable at low temperature. Base on quantity, character, and volatility, the cutback bitumen divides into three types. They are,

• Rapid Curing (RC) cutback bitumen
• Medium Curing (MC) cutback bitumen
• Slow Curing (SC) cutback bitumen

4. Bitumen Emulsion

A liquid product form by mixing molten bitumen with hot water in the presence of an emulsifying agent. It consists of soap or resinous bodies. On application, the water evaporates the emulsion breaks up and bitumen left in place. The change of color from chocolate brown to black indicates the breaking of the emulsion. Its classifications are,

• Rapid setting (RS)
• Medium setting (MS) and
• Slow setting  (SS)

The main advantage of the emulsion is it employes at the wet weather and it rains. These materials use for maintenance and repair works.

5. Tar

A dark, thick flammable liquid consisting of a mixture of hydrocarbons, resins, alcohols, and other compounds. This obtains by destructive distillation of coal, oil, petroleum wood and other organic materials. It is brown or black bituminous material with high viscosity. It uses in road-making and for coating. And has great variation in viscosity.