What do water, a wooden stick, a rubber ball and bitumen have in common?
More than 80 individuals - mainly non-technical and new-to-the-industry people from member companies - attended Eurobitume’s first members-only e-learning webinar of 2023, ‘Rheology’, presented by Eurobitume team member and Technical Lead Dr Ian Lancaster.
The webinar provided an introduction to rheology, starting from first principles and definitions, and covered the following areas:
- Rheological measurements covering the temperature range experienced by bitumen in service.
- Viscosity measurements (EN 13302 & EN 13702 whole) – which define the handling of bitumen from productions & loading to asphalt mixing and laying.
- The Dynamic Shear Rheometer – which gives information on binder stiffness (G*), elasticity (?) (EN 14770) and the equi-stiffness temperature o Other parameters and calculations were also explained.
- The Multiple Stress Creep and Recovery Test, MSCRT (EN 16659)
- The Bending Beam Rheometer, to assess the flexural creep stiffness (EN 14771) – which gives information on the low temperature properties of binders.
- Eurobitume’s freely available Technical Information Sheets and Data Collection project (the database is only available to Eurobitume members)– where further information about rheological testing can be found.
As was the case for the e-learning webinars held in 2022, the webinar was recorded and all the materials will be made available to members via the Eurobitume members’ Intranet site.