Introduction:

Dealing with asphalt in many ways and relying on its properties to use in daily life
It's important to deal with good manufacture asphalt. So tests performed on asphalt to be
sure that good asphalt is used, one of these tests is solubility of asphalt that is done to
measure the amount of insoluble materials in the asphalt cement.
While the other tests concerned with the physical properties of the asphalt cement such
as specific gravity of asphalt cement.

Objectives:
:The aim of these experiments is to
1. Be familiar with the determination of specific gravity for asphalt cement.
2. The solubility test covers the determination of the degree of solubility in
trichloroethylene of asphalt materials having little or no mineral matter.
3. Test the asphalt sample from impurities that may effect on the quality of the
asphalt cement.

Apparatus:
For solubility test:
1-filtering apparatus (fig.1)

2- Porcelain crucible.
3- Filter flask
4- Asbestose to make the filter.
For specific gravity of asphalt cement test:
1- Pycnometer and its stopper.
2- Weighing device.

Procedure:
For specific gravity of asphalt cement test:
1. A pycnometer is cleaned and weighted; the weight is recorded as A.
2. The pycnometer is filled with boiled distilled water, a stopper is placed firmly
into the pycnometer.
3. The pycnometer with water is weighted; the weight is recorded as B.
4. The asphalt cement is heated until it becomes sufficiently fluid to pour.
5. The pycnometer is filled with the heated sample up to 75% of its capacity.
6. The pycnometer with the asphalt is allowed to cool down for at least
40minits.
7. The pycnometer with the asphalt is weighted; the weight is recorded as C.
8. A boiled distilled water is added to the pycnometer with the sample, the total
weight of the (pycnometer +the sample + water) is recorded as D.

For Solubility test:

1. The asphalt cement is heated until it becomes sufficiently fluid to pour.
2. Approximately 2gr of the material is placed in a filter flask.
3. A 100ml of trichloroethylene is added in portion to the flask, each time shaking
and agitating are done to make the asphalt cement is dissolved into the
solution, stirring is also recommended.
4. A stopper is placed in the flask and kept a side for at least 15min.
5. The solution is filtered through a glass fiber pad in a porcelain crucible.
6. The weight before passing the solution is known.
7. The filter pad is placed and dried in an oven the weight of the filter and
insoluble is recorded.
8. The difference in the two weights is the insoluble material weight.

Data & Results:

For specific gravity of asphalt cement
Group1

Group2

Pyc. Weight= (A)

32.86gr

28.87gr

Pyc. +water weight= (B)

57.96gr

57.66gr

Pyc. +75%asphalt weight=(C)

50.84gr

49.16gr

(Pycnometer +the sample + water)

weight= (D)

57.84gr

57.40gr

Specific gravity of asphalt cement

0.99337

0.98735

Avg. specific gravity=0.99036

:For solubility test

Group 1

Group2

Avg.

Insoluble materials weight=A

0.01gr

0gr

Asphalt sample weight =B

2gr

2gr

Solubility%

99.5%

100%

99.75%

Insolubles%

0.5%

0%

0.25%

Discussion:
From this experiment of solubility we can see that the two samples having solubility
not less than 99% so the asphalt satisfies the specification of solubility.
In addition the specific gravity of asphalt cement test results: 0.99337 for group 1, and
0.98735 for group 2, so these values are close from the specific gravity of water and
located under the known rang of asphalt specific gravity (1.04-0.88).
It was noticed that in solubility test one of the asphalt sample is dissolved partially this
effects on the percent of insoluble in the asphalt cement specimen.

There where some errors during the test this refers to:
1. The shaking and agitating of the asphalt cement was not enough to dissolve all
the soluble materials in trichloroethylene solution.
2. Personal errors
3. weighing errors
4. Machine not calibrated

Conclusion:
From this experiment we can conclude that:

The asphalt cement has specific gravity close to water specific gravity.

Samples of solubility are good and satisfy the specifications.

Caution must be taken in this experiment while dealing with dangerous

materials such as Asbestos and trichloroethylene.

Solubility percent is a good indicator of the asphalt quality.

Appendix:
Sample of calculation:

:For specific gravity of asphalt cement

Sp.G. =
C-A
(D-C) - (B-A)
For group1:
Sp.G. =
50.84-32.86
= 0.99337
(57.84-50.84)-(57.96-32.86)
For solubility:
% solubility=100-((A/B)*100)%
% Insoluble= (A/B)*100%
:For group1
solubility=100-((0.01/2)*100) %=99.5%%
Insoluble= (0.01/2)*100 %=0.5%%
Tables:

:For specific gravity of asphalt cement

Pyc. Weight= (A)
Pyc. +water weight= (B)
Pyc. +75%asphalt weight=(C)
(Pycnometer +the sample + water)
weight= (D)

Group1
32.86gr
57.96gr
50.84gr
57.84gr

Group2
28.87gr
57.66gr
49.16gr
57.40gr

:For solubility test

Group 1

Group2

Insoluble materials weight=A 0.01gr

0gr

Asphalt sample weight =B

2gr

2gr

Avg.

References:
The Asphalt institute Mix design methods for Asphalt Concrete and other hot
mix types Manual series no.2(MS-2)
The Asphalt institute A brief introduction to Asphalt and some of its uses
Manual series no.5(MS-5)
ASTM
AASHTO