Penetration Grade

The penetration grade bitumen is refinery bitumen that is manufactured at different viscosities. The penetration test is carried out to characterize the bitumen, based on the hardness. Thus, it has the name penetration bitumen.

Penetration Grade Bitumen is a standard bitumen usually used as a Paving Grade Bitumen essential for road construction and for the production of asphalt pavements with superior properties, and it’s very important once it bounds the aggregates and creates a unique cohesion and stability to the bituminous mix.

Penetration value is the vertical distance traversed or penetrated by the point of a standard needle into the bituminous material under specific conditions of load, time and temperature. This distance is measured in one tenths of a millimeter.

Penetration Grade
40 – 50
50 -70
60-70
85 -100

Bitumen penetration grade 40/50 is semi-hard penetration grade bitumen used as a paving grade bitumen which is suitable for road construction and repair. It is also used for the production of asphalt pavements with the below technical specification.

Bitumen Penetration Grade 50/70 is a standard penetration grade Bitumen usually used as a Paving Grade Bitumen suitable for road construction and for the production of asphalt pavements with superior properties. This grade of Bitumen is mainly used in the manufacture of hot mix asphalt for bases and Bitumen penetration grade 60/70 means the penetration value is in the range 60 to 70 at standard test conditions which commonly used as a Paving Grade. Bitumen is applicable for the production of hot mix asphalt for bases and pavements and for road construction.Bitumen 60/70 is suitable for road construction and for the asphalt pavements with superior properties. This type of bitumen used in the manufacture of hot mix asphalt for bases and wearing courses and the main usage of this product is used in the road in mild regions. The bitumen is provided during the presses of oxidation of vacuum bottom in bitumen production units. Due to its medium air blowing and penetration, it is used in mild areas.

Bitumen Penetration Grade 85/100 is a standard penetration grade Bitumen usually used as a Paving Grade Bitumen suitable for road construction and for the production of asphalt pavements with superior properties. This grade of Bitumen is mainly used in the manufacture of hot mix asphalt for bases and wearing courses.

Bitumen penetration grade 60/70 means the penetration value is in the range 60 to 70 at standard test conditions which commonly used as a Paving Grade. Bitumen is applicable for the production of hot mix asphalt for bases and pavements and for road construction.Bitumen 60/70 is suitable for road construction and for the asphalt pavements with superior properties. This type of bitumen used in the manufacture of hot mix asphalt for bases and wearing courses and the main usage of this product is used in the road in mild regions. The bitumen is provided during the presses of oxidation of vacuum bottom in bitumen production units. Due to its medium air blowing and penetration, it is used in mild areas.

Bitumen Penetration Grade 85/100 is a standard penetration grade Bitumen usually used as a Paving Grade Bitumen suitable for road construction and for the production of asphalt pavements with superior properties. This grade of Bitumen is mainly used in the manufacture of hot mix asphalt for bases and wearing courses.

Performance Grade (PG) :
Performance Grade Bitumen is bitumen which is graded based on its performance at different temperatures.

The Long-Term Pavement Performance(LTPP) has given certain algorithm to calculate the temperature of the pavement based on the temperature of the air above. From this, the highest and the lowest temperatures of the pavement is calculated and the bitumen that performs well in that temperature range is selected.
Penetration grading and viscosity grading are somewhat limited in their ability to fully characterize asphalt binder for use in Hot Mix Asphalt(HMA) pavement. Therefore, as part of the Superpave research effort new binder tests and specifications were developed to more accurately and fully characterize asphalt binders for use in HMA pavements. These tests and specifications are specifically designed to address HMA pavement performance parameters such as rutting, fatigue cracking and thermal cracking.

Superpave performance grading (Performance Grade) is based on the idea that an HMA asphalt binder’s properties should be related to the conditions under which it is used. For asphalt binders, this involves expected climatic conditions as well as aging considerations. Therefore, the PG system uses a common battery of tests (as the older penetration and viscosity grading systems do) but specifies that a particular asphalt binder must pass these tests at specific temperatures that are dependant upon the specific climatic conditions in the area of use. This concept is not new selection of penetration or viscosity graded asphalt binders follows the same logic but the relationships between asphalt binder properties and conditions of use are more complete and more precise with the Superpave PG system. Information on how to select a PG asphalt binder for a specific condition is contained in Superpave mix design method.

Oxidized Bitumen :

Passing air through bitumen at elevated temperature can be used to alter its physical properties for certain commercial applications. The degree of oxidation can range from very small, often referred to as air rectification, or semi-blowing, which only slightly modifies the bitumen properties, through to “full” blowing, whereby the properties of the bitumen are significantly different to penetration grade bitumen. Nomenclature and grading for the oxidized bitumen products are based on a combination of the temperature at which the bitumen reaches certain “softness” when being heated up as expressed by the ring and ball softening point test, and the penetration value. Eurobitume has published a paper clarifying the criteria used to differentiate between air-rectified bitumen and oxidized bitumen.