When was asphalt invented? History of building materials

  • 15.06.2019
Who is who in the world of discoveries and inventions Sitnikov Vitaly Pavlovich

Who Invented Asphalt?

Who Invented Asphalt?

We are accustomed to asphalt, this nondescript gray material. It can be seen everywhere - under our feet, on the roofs of buildings, in canals and on the bottom of a tarred boat, and even in the paintings of great artists: the paints they used are based on natural mountain resin called asphalt. It is as "mountain resin" that the word "asphalt" is translated from Greek. It was introduced into use by the historian Herodotus, who told us in his History about this material and its location in Mesopotamia.

The ancient Romans called mountain tar bitumen. In fact, it is one of the components of oil. In ancient times, amphoras with wine were sealed with bitumen asphalt, it was used as a special glue, and the bottoms of ships were tarred. They covered the floors of grain storages to protect them from moisture, they smeared the joints between the slabs of temples, fastened bricks and stones together, with which they laid out the banks of reservoirs and irrigation canals.

This material was known not only in the ancient East and in ancient states. Asphalt-bitumen was also known to the ancient Incas, who created their civilization in America. When the first conquering Europeans came to South America at the beginning of the 16th century, they saw amazingly wide and even highways paved with huge stone slabs, the joints of which were smeared with asphalt. Separate sections of these roads serve as a reliable means of transportation for the modern inhabitants of Bolivia.

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We have all heard the expression "Asphalt jungle", which is associated with huge metropolitan areas, where all small paths are paved. Few people can imagine life without asphalt - without roads, without playgrounds, without these rivers of black building material that encircled our entire Earth. Few people think about how asphalt was created, how we got this unique invention of man, without which modern life would be impossible!

The history of the creation of asphalt.

Asphalt, in its classical formula, is a combination of bitumen and mineral matter (gravel or sand). More than 60% of roads in the world are covered with such asphalt. It appeared for the first time in 1830, when in Europe they began to combine bitumen with minerals and discovered that this mixture is very practical for creating durable ground layers. This is how the first paved roads began to appear. land in the world. Initially, their purpose was exclusively production - for faster movement. Vehicle, the cars were still far away. Its development asphalt t received in parallel with the development of mechanical engineering, when strong roadbeds were required connecting large cities with each other.

Later, it was necessary to make asphalt roads more durable - this is how asphalt concrete appeared, which is used in road construction today. Asphalt concrete is a mixture based on the combination of a solid base, often crushed stone, and an asphalt mixture, which is improved every year, since the roadbeds are not able to withstand modern loads on them.

Yes, in modern world apply several types of asphalt:

  • Asphalt Peach Lake- asphalt mined in the modest republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Every year, asphalt is exported to dozens of leading countries of the world, as it is famous for its exceptional strength and reliability;
  • Classic asphalt- asphalt, the most common natural asphalt, which is used in world construction. Classical asphalt is mined in Canada, Russia, Venezuela and France;
  • artificial asphalt- produced by factories using a combination of bitumen, crushed stone and minerals. This type of asphalt covers most roadbeds our planet.

These three types of asphalt are the most widespread in the world. There are many additives in asphalt that make it more durable and wear-resistant, but the main formula of the composition asphalt has been preserved for centuries.

To the question Who invented asphalt? ? When did he appear in Russia? given by the author Neurosis the best answer is did he show up there?

Answer from electrostatics[guru]
Why do we need asphalt .... let there be a place on the planet free from bituminous tapes compressing the earth ....


Answer from Fitted[guru]
In the summer of 1839, sidewalks were covered in St. Petersburg for 45.5 linear fathoms 5 feet wide (97.08 × 1.52 m) and part of the bridge 8.5 long and 6.5 feet wide (2.59 × 1 .98 m) at the Tuchkov bridge dam. The first in Russia to establish the production of asphalt was engineer I.F. Buttats. The cost of 1 sq. m of coverage cost 14 rubles. For the first time, Russian asphalt began to be mined at the Syzran plant in 1873 (on the right bank of the Volga, 20 km higher than Syzran).
In 1876, the Moscow City Duma allocated 50 thousand rubles for an experiment on the installation of asphalt concrete pavement. Several sections of new material were built on Tverskaya Street


Answer from Liana Ceri[guru]
Asphalt (from the Greek asphaltos - mountain resin) is a mixture of bitumen (60–75% in natural and 13–60% in artificial asphalt) with minerals (limestone, sandstone, etc.). It is used in a mixture with sand, gravel, crushed stone for the construction of highways, as a roofing, hydro- and electrical insulating material, for the preparation of putties, adhesives, varnishes, etc. Asphalt can be of natural and artificial origin
a luchwe zaidi po ssilke,tam mnogo napisano ob istorii asfalta.udachi!
link


Answer from Kitten[newbie]
no one is just an accident


Answer from Hanna[guru]
Asphalt (from Greek άσφαλτος - mountain resin) - a mixture of bitumen (60–75% in natural and 13–60% in artificial) with minerals (limestone, sandstone, etc.). It is used in mixture with sand, gravel, crushed stone for the construction of highways, as a roofing, hydro- and electrical insulating material, for the preparation of putties, adhesives, varnishes, etc. Asphalt can be of natural and artificial origin.
Natural asphalt is formed from heavy fractions of oil or their residues as a result of evaporation of its light components and oxidation under the influence of hypergenesis. It occurs in the form of reservoir vein deposits, as well as impregnated permeable layers (so-called acidification) and lakes in areas of natural oil seeps to the earth's surface (content in rocks from 2–3 to 20%). Solid black fusible mass with a shiny or dull conchoidal fracture. Density 1.1 g/cm3, melting point 20–100°C. Contains 25–40% oils and 60–75% resinous asphaltene substances. Elemental composition (%): 80–85 C, 10–12 N, 0.1–108, 2–3 O. Asphalt deposits are available on the territory former USSR, in Venezuela, Canada, France, on about. Trinidad and others. Mixing with mineral components (sand, gravel, etc.), it turns into a more or less powerful crust on the surface of large "oil lakes". Such asphalt is widely distributed in areas of shallow occurrence or outcrop of oil-bearing rocks and usually fills cracks and caverns in limestones, dolomites and other rocks. History - Natural asphalt is abundantly found in ruins excavated in the vicinity of Babylon, where it was used instead of lime or cement in masonry. stone walls. Natural asphalt, or pitch, was also used by the ancients for pitching ships. Natural asphalt, also, according to the Bible, was pitched on the basket in which the mother put Moses, placing the basket in the reeds on the banks of the Nile River. Artificial asphalt or asphalt concrete is a building material in the form of a compacted mixture of crushed stone, sand, mineral powder and bitumen. Distinguish between hot, containing viscous bitumen, laid and compacted at a temperature not lower than 120 ° C; warm - with low-viscosity bitumen and compaction temperature of 40–80°C; cold - with liquid bitumen, compacted at ambient temperature, but not lower than 10°C. Asphalt concrete is used to cover roads, airfields, sites, etc. Initially, in the 19th century, city streets were paved with stones (cobblestone pavement). Starting from the middle of the 19th century, in France, Switzerland, the United States and a number of other countries, road surfaces are being made from bitumen-mineral mixtures. In 1876, for the first time in the United States, cast asphalt was used, prepared using petroleum bitumen. For the first time, asphalt concrete pavement was used to cover the sidewalks of the Royal Bridge in Paris in the 30s of the XX century. In the early 1930s, in France, in the department of Ain, sidewalks on the Moran bridge over the Rhone River in Lyon were covered with asphalt. The booming road network required new types pavement, which could be built as quickly as the subgrade. So, in 1892 in the USA, the first road structure made of concrete 3 m wide was built by the industrial method, and 12 years later, with the help of an asphalt distributor with a free flow of hot bitumen, 29 km of the road. Asphalt was the most suitable material for pavement. Firstly, it becomes more even, and therefore less noisy and has the necessary roughness. Secondly, you can immediately open traffic on the laid asphalt concrete and not wait until it hardens, unlike cement concrete, which gains the necessary strength only on the 28th day. Thirdly, asphalt concrete pavement is easily repaired, washed, cleaned, any markings adhere well to it.

Asphalt is a natural or artificial multicomponent material based on surface (formed when it comes to the surface of the earth) or oil (obtained as a result of oil refining and subsequent processing of the tar remaining in the sediment) bitumen containing mineral fillers - gravel, crushed stone different breeds, sand.

In fact, the application of the term "asphalt" to road asphalt mixtures is incorrect. The content of asphalt as a mixture of bitumen in the total mass is several times less and depends on the grade of the material.

The beginning of the use of asphalt for road construction

The first mention of the use of natural asphalt for road construction refers toXVIcentury and South America. The production of artificial poured asphalt mixes appeared in the USA only at the end ofXIXcentury, bitumen-mineral compositions came to the streets of Europe a little earlier - in 1830-40. paved sidewalks and roadways in the cities of France, Austria, Great Britain and Russia began to be replaced with asphalt pavements.

The first trial and larger-scale experience of asphalting was carried out in St. Petersburg, but only by 1980. the new road material spread to other major cities. At the same time, its own plant was not built in Russia immediately - for three decades, the then progressive product was purchased abroad.

America again proved to be a pioneer in mechanized laying. It was here that an asphalt distributor was first used to build the road, from which hot bitumen poured.

The composition of natural and artificial asphalt

Natural asphalt is mined from rare deposits - Peach Lake in Trinidad, Dead Sea in Israel, Alberta in Canada, Orinoco Belt in Venezuela, US states, Iran, Cuba. The composition includes a mixture of bitumen with a content of up to 70%, inorganic inclusions and organic compounds.

Artificial asphalt mixes consist of two main components. Viscous, low-viscosity or liquid petroleum, modified bitumen and PBB (polymer-bitumen binders) act as a binder component. Crushed stone / gravel of different fractions from 5-10 mm to 20-40 mm, sand and mineral powder are used as fillers to improve strength, viscosity and fill voids.

Asphalt concrete is a monolithic road surface obtained by laying and compacting an asphalt concrete mixture.

Asphalt production technology

The main steps in the production of any asphalt mix are the preparation of components, mixing and storage in a bunker. Production is carried out on stationary and mobile (located near the site road construction) factories.

General technological steps:

  • Preparation of the mixture components. Mineral fillers are crushed and separated into fractions using a screen, dried, heated, dosed and fed into the mixer.
  • bitumen preparation. The heated bitumen is fed to the bitumen melting plant, kept under constant stirring, adding surfactants and raising the temperature until the moisture evaporates, is sent to the working boilers and to the batching of the mixer.
  • Mixing components. Prepared crushed stone / gravel, sand are fed into a forced-action asphalt mixer for “dry” mixing with the addition of mineral powder and the subsequent addition of heated bitumen and mixing until a homogeneous mixture.
  • Overloading the ready mixture. Hot mix asphalt is sent to a storage bin or loaded into dump trucks for transportation to the construction site. The cold mixture is cooled and transported to a warehouse for storage.

Heating of crushed stone and bitumen in the production of hot mixes is carried out to a temperature of 165 ... 175 0 С and 140…155 0 C, in the manufacture of cold mixes - up to 65 ... 75 0 С and 110…120 0 C respectively.

The classification of asphalt mixes is carried out according to residual porosity, type of mineral materials, their fraction and percentage, bituminous binder and laying temperature.

Separate types of asphalt concrete mixtures

In addition to traditional and widely used asphalt concrete mixtures, there are more progressive road materials that differ from the first in composition and laying conditions.

These include:

  • Crushed stone-mastic mixtures of ShchMA with stabilizing additives.
  • Cast asphalt mixtures with increased content of bitumen and mineral powder.
  • Polymer-asphalt-concrete mixtures with the addition of polymers (elastomers).
  • Colored hot and cold mixtures with coloring pigments.
  • Glass-asphalt-concrete mixtures with the inclusion of glass cullet.
  • Rubber-asphalt-concrete and rubber drainage mixtures with crumb rubber and polymer additives.
  • Sulfur asphalt concrete mixtures with the presence of technical sulfur.

Each type of material has a specific area of ​​application, due to the characteristics and performance and properties of the resulting coating.

In which city did the first paved road appear?

Asphalt was the first oil product that man met. Natural asphalt - one of the types of natural bitumen - is a viscous resinous substance formed from heavy oil fractions as a result of prolonged weathering. It occurs in the form of reservoir vein deposits, as well as lakes in places where oil naturally comes out to the surface of the earth. It is a hard, fusible black mass containing 25–40% oils and 60–75% resinous asphaltene substances. The word "asphalt" (from the Greek "asfales" - strong, strong, reliable) has been known since the time of Herodotus, who described Mesopotamian and Persian asphalt deposits in his "History".
People found the use of natural asphalt at the dawn of civilization - in Ancient Egypt 5,000 years ago, the floors and walls of barns for grain storage were covered with asphalt. In Babylon, it was used as a binder when laying stone walls - the Bible says that during the construction Tower of Babel"earthen tar" was used, as asphalt was called in ancient times. The same Babylonians, when constructing the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon, used a layer of asphalt mixed with reeds for waterproofing. For 400-500 years BC in Media, the walls of fortresses, as the ancient Greek historian Xenophon testifies, were built of bricks held together with natural bitumen. In the same way, on bitumen, the first sections of the Great Wall of China were erected.
As for the more familiar to us road application asphalt, then natural asphalt was used in the construction of roads in America, more than half a thousand years before such an application of asphalt was thought of in Europe and the USA. When in 1532 a detachment of Spanish conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro entered the territory of the Inca Empire, they were amazed, among other things, by the magnificent roads covered with asphalt.
But the great civilizations of the past perished, and asphalt as a building material was forgotten for centuries and millennia. Up to early XIX centuries, the streets of all cities in the world, at best, were paved with stones, and only then in major cities started new era the era of asphalt. In 1832 - 1835. in Paris, the first work was done on paving city streets and sidewalks with asphalt. Further, in 1835-1840, it was the turn of London, Vienna, Lyon, Philadelphia and some other cities.
V Russian Empire The first experience of using asphalt was made in 1839, when in St. Petersburg almost 100 meters of a one and a half meter wide pavement near the Tuchkov Bridge were covered with it. On a somewhat larger scale, asphalt was used in 1865, when the terraces of the Winter Palace were asphalted. But already in next year asphalt began to be widely used on ordinary St. Petersburg streets, squares and courtyards, and by 1880 many streets in Kronstadt, Moscow, Riga, Kharkov, Kiev and Odessa were covered with it. True, the first asphalt plant was built in Russia only in 1873, a few miles from Syzran, and before that, asphalt was purchased abroad.
Since the middle of the 19th century, in France, the USA, Switzerland and other countries, road surfaces have been made from bitumen-mineral mixtures. In the United States, cast asphalt prepared using petroleum bitumen was first used in 1876. Then, in 1892, the first road structure 3 meters wide was built using the industrial method, and 12 years later, 29 km of the road was built using a free-flowing asphalt distributor with hot bitumen.
The booming road network needed new types of pavement, and asphalt proved to be the most suitable material. It can be laid almost perfectly evenly, it is a very quiet coating, but at the same time it has the necessary roughness. Modern roads are covered with asphalt, made on the basis of petroleum bitumen, obtained as a result of air oxidation of heavy residues of oil distillation at a temperature of 239-340 °C. This process was developed in 1896 and put into production in 1914.