GRADING SYSTEM IN PAVING BITUMEN – AN INDIAN SCENARIO

In India almost 90 per cent road network is occupied by bituminous pavements only. Because bitumen is extensively used as the binding material and it prevents water penetrating in to the structures. That to a rapid rate of development in every aspect of life and it was dominated by construction boom, it resulted in increased traffic volumes, pavement temperatures and higher than the design load magnitude; leads to the failure of bituminous pavements. In fact, there is a huge gap in India between proper characterization of bitumen and its execution in the industries true to the specifications and the aspirational planning of creation of important public assets in the road sector whose durability and serviceability is very important socioeconomic improvement of the country. This paper gives an overview of paving bitumen grading system, characterization and the new viscosity graded (VG) bitumen specifications has been compared with the old penetration graded bitumen specification.