In recent years, there has been a further development of refining technology, which make it possible to better use of crude oil, which also has a major impact on the quality of bitumen. Most European refineries, of course, are processing, for reasons of the resale of petroleum products, especially petroleums suitable for the recovery of light and middle fractions. Therefore, light petroleums are required, with low yields of heavy fractions, which are highly economically and in dispositions efficient for processors on the petroleum market. Emphasis is placed on the sulfur content, the paraffin content is no longer the most important aspect. Less important from the perspective of the refinery is the content and the ratio of asphaltenes and maltenes. There is no doubt that we will have to change our view on petroleum products. Their availability will continue to decline, their price, on the other hand, is likely to grow in relation to falling supplies of resources. Therefore, the view of the bitumen must be changed. The most common way of production of PG bitumen is vacuum distillation, which is carried out in such a way that the vacuum distillation residue satisfies it´s properties bitumen requirements for the relevant penetration.
The quality of bituminous binders used in the construction and maintenance of road surfaces is currently assessed by empirical testing based on obtaining one value for specific boundary conditions, which were designed about 100 years ago. Basic empirical tests include the softening point and penetration, but the practice shows that these tests appear to be inadequate. The evaluation of changes of bitumen properties during the production and paving process of bituminous mixture is also important. The paper points out how the “traditional” tests as softening point and penetration and viscosity are sufficient to evaluate properties of bitumen binders.
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