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Surface wrinkling: the phenomenon causing bees in bitumen

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Abstract

The so called “bee phenomenon” in bitumen has been investigated by means of AFM quantitative nanomechanical property mapping. Bees are a phenomenon that can be observed by topography measurements using AFM. The characteristic “bee” appearance comes from regions with alternating higher and lower bands in the surface topography of bitumen, which are surrounded by a flat area. The proposed mechanism for bee formation is phase separation and differential contraction during cooling from melt temperatures leading to wrinkling due to differences in the elastic modulus of the material phases. Using a laminate wrinkling model, the thickness of the bee laminate was calculated from the wavelengths and Young’s moduli of the bee laminate and the matrix. It was found to vary between 70 and 140 nm for the five bitumen samples that contained significant amounts of wax.

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Acknowledgements

Fundings from BVFF, SBUF, and from the Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE Holding AB) are gratefully acknowledged. The authors thank Thorsten Nordgren at the Swedish Transport Administration for providing the bitumen samples, and Björn Kalman, VTI, for providing the wax contents. Måns Collin and Per Redelius are thanked for many valuable discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Highway and Railway Engineering, Architecture and the Built Environment, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 100 44, Stockholm, Sweden

    Åsa Laurell Lyne & Björn Birgisson

  2. SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden, Box 5607, 114 86, Stockholm, Sweden

    Viveca Wallqvist, Mark W. Rutland & Per Claesson

  3. Surface and Corrosion Science, Chemical Science and Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 100 44, Stockholm, Sweden

    Mark W. Rutland & Per Claesson

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  1. Åsa Laurell Lyne
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  2. Viveca Wallqvist
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  3. Mark W. Rutland
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  4. Per Claesson
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  5. Björn Birgisson
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Correspondence to Åsa Laurell Lyne.

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Lyne, Å.L., Wallqvist, V., Rutland, M.W. et al. Surface wrinkling: the phenomenon causing bees in bitumen. J Mater Sci 48, 6970–6976 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-013-7505-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-013-7505-4

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