JTG F40 沥青技术要求 · The Chinese Highway Bitumen Specification Explained

JTG F40-2004《公路沥青路面施工技术规范》由交通部发布，是中国沥青路面施工验收的行业标准。道路石油沥青分160号至30号七个标号，每个标号再分A、B、C三级。标号为标称针入度，70号即60–80（0.1mm）。等级由蜡含量、10℃延度、针入度指数和老化指标决定，并规定适用的公路等级与层次。

JTG F40-2004《公路沥青路面施工技术规范》 is the highway industry specification for asphalt pavement construction and acceptance in China, issued by the transport ministry. It defines road petroleum asphalt (道路石油沥青) in seven grades — 160#, 130#, 110#, 90#, 70#, 50# and 30# — each subdivided into quality classes A, B and C (A级、B级、C级). The grade number is a nominal penetration, so 70# covers a penetration band of 60–80 (0.1 mm) rather than 60–70. The class does not change the penetration band; it is set by wax content (蜡含量), ductility at 10 °C, penetration index (针入度指数) and the requirements on the residue after ageing, and it determines which class of highway and which pavement layer the binder may be used in. All acceptance testing is performed to JTG E20-2011《公路工程沥青及沥青混合料试验规程》, and the 2004 edition remains the one project documents and commercial correspondence overwhelmingly reference.

发布机构与标准体系 · Who issues it and where it sits

JTG F40-2004 is a Chinese highway industry standard (行业标准). The JTG designation identifies the highway engineering series administered by the national transport ministry — the Ministry of Communications (交通部) at the time the 2004 edition was issued, renamed the Ministry of Transport (交通运输部) in the subsequent reorganisation. That places it a level below a national GB standard in the formal hierarchy, and squarely at the centre of practice: highway projects in China are built and accepted against it.

Its full title is《公路沥青路面施工技术规范》 — technical specification for construction of highway asphalt pavements. It superseded the earlier JTJ-series construction specification for the same subject. The name matters, because it tells you what the document is: a construction specification, not a materials standard in the sense that ASTM D946 or EN 12591 are materials standards.

规范管的是什么 · What the specification actually governs

JTG F40 runs from materials through to finished pavement. It carries requirements and guidance for aggregate and filler, mix design, plant production, transport, paving, compaction, joints, quality control and acceptance. The binder requirements sit inside the materials chapter, and they cover more than 道路石油沥青 alone — the same chapter carries requirement tables for polymer modified bitumen (改性沥青), emulsified asphalt (乳化沥青) and cutback or liquid petroleum asphalt (液体石油沥青).

The practical consequence for a supplier is that the binder table is one page inside a much larger document, and the engineer reading it is reading it alongside the mix design and the acceptance clauses. That is why an offer built only around penetration reads as incomplete to a Chinese project: penetration is one line of a table that the specification treats as a set.

2004版与版本问题 · The edition question

The 2004 edition is the one that project documents, tender packages and commercial correspondence overwhelmingly reference, and it is the edition assumed throughout this page. Chinese standards are periodically revised, and a specification that has been in force for a long period accumulates supplementary provincial documents around it rather than being replaced quietly. Two rules follow. First, work from the edition named in your own project documents rather than the edition named in a supplier’s email. Second, if a tender cites JTG F40 without an edition year, ask which edition the design was carried out against before you price anything.

牌号序列 160号至30号 · The grade series

JTG F40 defines road petroleum asphalt in seven numbered grades, and they descend as the binder gets harder:

• 160号 — the soft end of the series, for low-stiffness and specialised work. It is rarely encountered in import trade.
• 130号 and 110号 — soft grades for cold northern regions, and the usual base material for emulsion and cutback production.
• 90号 — one step softer than the mainstream grade; colder winters, lighter loading.
• 70号 — the grade that carries most of the volume in Chinese highway paving, because it suits the hot-summer, moderate-winter belt where most of the traffic is.
• 50号 — hot regions and heavily loaded corridors, where rutting rather than cracking is the governing risk.
• 30号 — the hard end, for the hottest conditions and heavy-duty or high-modulus base layers.

标号命名规则 · The naming rule that costs money

This is the single most common misunderstanding in China-facing bitumen trade, and it takes one sentence to correct. In the Chinese system, the number is the nominal penetration (标称针入度), and the acceptance band sits either side of it. 70# is penetration 60–80 tenths of a millimetre at 25 °C. 90# is 80–100. 50# is 40–60.

ASTM works the other way round: in ASTM D946 the grade name is the band, so 60/70 means 60 to 70 and nothing wider. The two conventions produce names that look like each other and mean different things. A 60/70 cargo falls comfortably inside the 70# penetration band; a 70# batch testing at 76 dmm is a perfectly good 70# and is out of grade as 60/70. Every conversation that treats 70# and 60/70 as the same designation is carrying an unresolved specification inside it.

JTG F40 与 GB/T 15180 · Two standards, one material

Alongside JTG F40 sits GB/T 15180《重交通道路石油沥青》, the national standard for heavy-traffic road petroleum asphalt. It grades the same material using AH- designations — AH-130, AH-110, AH-90, AH-70, AH-50 and AH-30 — where AH-70 covers the same 60–80 penetration band as 70#. The two documents are not two labels for one specification. The limits they set on solubility, softening point, wax content and post-ageing mass change are not the same limits, and GB/T 15180 carries no A/B/C class structure at all, so a quality class quoted against it is meaningless. A contract must name one standard, one edition and, where JTG F40 applies, one quality class.

地方与项目规范 · Provincial and project specifications tighten it

JTG F40 is a floor, not a ceiling. Provincial transport departments and individual projects routinely issue their own technical documents that adopt the national framework and then tighten specific lines — commonly wax content, the low-temperature ductility requirement, the ageing residue block, or the 60 °C dynamic viscosity floor. A large expressway project in a severe climate zone may also add requirements that JTG F40 does not carry at all.

For a supplier, this means the national table is where a technical conversation starts and not where it ends. Ask for the project’s own specification document, not just the grade name and the standard number. A cargo that satisfies JTG F40 70# A级 in every respect can still be rejected against a provincial requirement that was tighter on one line, and that rejection happens at the destination laboratory, after the cargo has landed.

针入度 · Penetration

The defining consistency measurement: a needle under a 100 g load is allowed to sink into a conditioned sample for 5 seconds at 25 °C, and the depth in tenths of a millimetre is the result. It selects the grade and nothing else — it is identical across quality classes A, B and C. A binder outside the band is the wrong grade, regardless of how well it performs elsewhere. Penetration alone tells you almost nothing about how the binder behaves at pavement temperatures, which is why the Chinese table does not stop there.

软化点 · Softening point

Measured by the ring and ball method. It is the temperature at which the binder loses enough stiffness to deform under a defined load, and it is the closest single-number proxy in the table for high-temperature rutting resistance. JTG F40 sets a floor rather than a window at the A级 level, and the floor rises steadily as the grade hardens — 43 °C at 110#, 45 °C at 90#, 46 °C at 70#, 49 °C at 50#, 55 °C at 30#. Note that the softening point also steps down by quality class within a grade: at 70# it is minimum 46 °C for A级, 45 °C for B级 and 43 °C for C级.

延度 · Ductility, and why the test temperature matters

A briquette of bitumen is stretched at 5 cm/min until it breaks, and the elongation at break is the result. It measures cohesion and the binder’s ability to tolerate movement without brittle fracture. The important detail for an exporter is the temperature: JTG F40 requires ductility at 15 °C of minimum 100 cm at 70# and 90#, and applies a further requirement at 10 °C whose limit varies with both quality class and climate zone. A typical Middle East export specification quotes ductility at 25 °C. The Chinese requirement is at a materially lower temperature, and passing 100 cm at 25 °C says nothing about whether the same binder reaches 100 cm at 15 °C, let alone at 10 °C. This is one of the quietest sources of failed acceptance testing.

针入度指数 PI · Penetration index

PI is calculated rather than measured directly, from penetration values at more than one temperature. It describes temperature susceptibility — how sharply the binder changes consistency as temperature moves. A strongly negative PI indicates a binder that softens quickly as it heats and stiffens quickly as it cools, which is exactly the behaviour a pavement cannot tolerate at both ends of its service range. JTG F40 applies a PI window of -1.5 to +1.0 at 70#; read the window applicable to your grade and class from the requirement table rather than assuming one figure covers the series. PI appears on almost no Middle East technical data sheet, which means it is usually an unknown at the point of offer.

60 ℃ 动力粘度 · Dynamic viscosity at 60 °C

Sixty degrees approximates the temperature of a hot pavement surface layer in service, which makes viscosity at that temperature a more direct indicator of rutting resistance than penetration at 25 °C. JTG F40 requires a minimum of 180 Pa·s for 70# A级. This is a line that separates two binders with identical penetration and identical softening point, and it is one of the two properties — with wax content — most likely to be missing from an export laboratory report.

闪点 · Flash point

Cleveland open cup. The requirement is a safety and integrity line at the same time. It sets the ceiling for storage, transfer and plant heating temperatures, and it screens out binders carrying light cutter stock or distillate residue. The Chinese floor of 260 °C for 70#, 50# and 30# is substantially above the 232 °C required by ASTM D946, and it is one of the requirements a fully compliant 60/70 export cargo most often fails outright.

溶解度 · Solubility in trichloroethylene

The anti-adulteration line. It confirms the material is genuine bitumen rather than bitumen extended with mineral filler or another insoluble. JTG F40 requires minimum 99.5 % at 70# and 90# A级, against 99.0 % in ASTM D946 and EN 12591. Half a percentage point sounds trivial and is not: on a 1,000 tonne cargo it is the difference between five tonnes of insolubles and ten, and it is precisely the range in which extension is commercially attractive.

蜡含量 · Wax content

The property with no counterpart in ASTM D946 or EN 12591, and the one that decides quality class. Crystalline paraffin wax behaves the wrong way round in a pavement: it stiffens the binder at low temperature, where flexibility is needed, and softens it at high temperature, where stiffness is needed. The same crystalline fraction migrates to the binder–aggregate interface and interferes with the bond that holds the mix together, and a high-wax surface course is the one that goes slick and bleeds through a hot afternoon. Chinese practice has treated wax as a first-order quality property for decades. The distillation method limits are 2.2 % for A级, 3.0 % for B级 and 4.5 % for C级 — set by class, not by grade.

老化后残留指标 · The ageing residue block

The rolling thin film oven test and the thin film oven test simulate the oxidation and volatile loss a binder undergoes during plant mixing. Three things are then checked on the residue: mass change, limited to ±0.8 %; the retained penetration ratio, which must reach 61 % of the original at 70# A级, 63 % at 50#, 57 % at 90# and 54 % at 110#; and residue ductility, whose limits tighten again by class and climate zone. This block is the best predictor in the whole table of premature cracking, and it is the block most often absent from a weak certificate of analysis. A binder that hardens sharply during mixing arrives on the road already part-aged, and the pavement pays for it in the third winter rather than the first.

密度 · Density

Measured and reported at 15 °C rather than limited. It is not a quality criterion, but it is required on the record because it is what converts between the mass the contract is written in and the volume the tanks and the meters work in. A missing density figure turns every subsequent quantity reconciliation into an argument.

从哪里开始 · Where the two specifications actually meet

The standard Middle East export offer is bitumen 60/70, and the first thing to separate is what ASTM D946 actually requires of that grade from what the commercial sheet volunteers on top of it. ASTM D946 sets penetration 60–70, flash point minimum 232 °C, solubility minimum 99.0 %, ductility at 25 °C minimum 100 cm, and a retained penetration floor after the thin film oven test — and it carries no softening point requirement at all. The commercial specification that travels with the cargo then typically adds a softening point band of 49–56 °C and quotes flash point at minimum 250 °C, tighter than the standard it names. Both matter here, because a buyer comparing sheets will read the volunteered figures as though they were specification limits.

Set the whole of that beside JTG F40 70# A级 and exactly one line maps cleanly: penetration 60–70 sits comfortably inside the 60–80 band of 70#. The volunteered softening point band would also clear the 46 °C floor, since it starts at 49 °C — but it clears a Chinese requirement using a number that ASTM D946 never asked for, which is a thin basis for an acceptance argument.

That is the whole of the overlap. Everything else in the Chinese table is either measured differently, measured at a different temperature, or not measured at all in the export specification.

最常失败的几条线 · The lines that typically fail

• 蜡含量 Wax content. ASTM D946 sets no wax limit, so an export technical data sheet usually has no figure to compare. A cargo that is entirely respectable under ASTM can sit at 3 % or above and therefore cannot be offered as A级 at any price. This is the largest single barrier and it is discussed below.
• 闪点 Flash point. The Chinese floor is 260 °C at 70#. ASTM D946 requires 232 °C, and Middle East export specifications commonly quote minimum 250 °C. A binder built to clear 250 comfortably may have no margin at 260.
• 溶解度 Solubility. 99.5 % against 99.0 %. Material sitting at 99.2 % passes the export specification and fails JTG F40 A级.
• 延度 Ductility temperature. The export line is at 25 °C; the Chinese lines are at 15 °C and 10 °C. A pass at 25 °C carries no information about the lower temperatures, and this is frequently discovered only at the destination laboratory.
• 老化后残留指标 The ageing residue block. Export sheets typically report loss on heating and a maximum drop in penetration. JTG F40 asks for mass change within ±0.8 %, a retained penetration ratio measured against a stated floor, and residue ductility that tightens by class and climate zone. The tests are related; the acceptance criteria are not the same criteria.
• 不在表上的两项 Two properties that simply are not there. Penetration index and 60 °C dynamic viscosity appear on almost no Middle East technical data sheet. At 70# A级 the viscosity floor is 180 Pa·s and the PI window is -1.5 to +1.0. An offer that cannot report them is an offer with two unknowns in it.

原油性质与蜡 · Crude slate and wax, stated plainly

The wax problem is not a manufacturing shortcut and it is not fixed by better quality control. It comes from the crude. Bitumen refined from naphthenic crude is naturally low in wax, and that is the material the JTG F40 tables were calibrated against — the 2.2 % A级 figure is not an arbitrary line drawn to exclude anyone, it is close to where a good domestic naphthenic-based binder already sits without being asked. A large part of the Middle East crude slate is more paraffinic, and the wax fraction travels through the refinery into the residue.

The consequence is direct: a paraffinic-based binder can be excellent by every measure ASTM cares about and still be structurally incapable of meeting the 2.2 % A级 limit. There is no point in avoiding this. An exporter who intends to sell into a Chinese project specification should have wax content determined by T 0615 before making an offer, and should design the offer around the result — targeting B级 or C级 applications where the project permits them, rather than quoting A级 and hoping.

试验规程的问题 · The test protocol problem

Even where the numbers pass, the methods can be challenged. Chinese acceptance testing is carried out to JTG E20-2011, and a certificate of analysis issued entirely against ASTM methods invites the question of whether the result would have been the same under T 0604 or T 0615. On a marginal line — solubility at 99.5 %, flash point at 260 °C — that question is not academic. The clean answer is to have the binder tested to the JTG E20 method numbers and to have those numbers printed on the certificate.

商业现实 · The commercial reality

China is largely self-sufficient in bitumen from domestic refining, so an import is never the only way a Chinese project fills its tank. A cargo arrives because coastal logistics beat inland freight into that particular port, because a window opens on price or availability, or because a project asks for something specific. Read against the requirement table on this page, that has one consequence worth stating plainly: JTG F40 is not a bar the buyer has any reason to lower for an import, because the binder on the other side of the comparison was made from a favourable crude and tested to JTG E20 as a matter of routine. The table has to be answered line by line, and the lines that cannot be answered have to be named before the offer goes out rather than discovered after the sample is drawn.

让报价可被检验 · Making the offer checkable

Three things turn a Chinese enquiry into a workable transaction. First, a batch-specific certificate of analysis issued against the named standard, edition and quality class, showing measured values rather than the specification range copied across, with wax content and the ductility results at 15 °C and 10 °C shown explicitly. Second, third-party inspection at load port with retained samples sealed in the presence of the inspector and held by both parties, because a test result is only defensible if the sample it came from can be traced to the cargo. Third, a documentary file that names the same standard the technical file does. Bitumen enters under HS heading 2713.20 (石油沥青), with the full national subheading to be confirmed with a licensed customs broker for the specific product and origin. Import VAT on goods is 13 %, and no duty rate should be assumed or quoted — it has to be read off the current tariff schedule for that subheading and origin. The safety data sheet must be in Simplified Chinese, in GB/T 16483 format, with GHS classification under the GB 30000 series. And since customs and inspection were merged in 2018 the former CIQ function has sat inside the General Administration of Customs (中国海关总署, GACC), so any procedure note still treating CIQ as a separate agency is describing a system that no longer exists. None of this changes a test result. It matters here because a declaration, a contract and a certificate of analysis that name the standard, edition and quality class differently from one another will stop a consignment while somebody establishes which of the three documents the cargo was actually sold against.

规格谈成之后 · What the specification does not settle

One caution on scope. JTG F40 governs what the binder must be, not how it travels or how it is packed, and a technical conversation that has been settled line by line against the requirement table has settled only the technical half of the transaction. Packing configuration, transport temperature and dangerous-goods status, the import document set and the safety data sheet are separate workstreams with their own pages on this site. They are worth keeping separate in correspondence too, because the commonest way a well-specified cargo goes wrong is that the standard and class agreed in the technical thread never make it verbatim into the contract, the certificate of analysis and the declaration.