Rolling Thin Film Oven

The Thin Film Balancing Furnace (RTFO) procedure offers short-term simulated aged asphalt binder for physical property testing. Asphalt binder is exposed to elevated temperatures to simulate aging fabrication and placement. RTFO also provides a quantitative measure of volatile compounds lost during the aging process. The basic RTFO procedure takes samples of unaged asphalt binder in cylindrical glass bottles and places these bottles in a spinning car in a furnace. The cart rotates within the oven while the 325 ° F (163 ° C) temperature ages of the samples for 85 minutes. Samples are stored for use in the VPA or physical test properties. The Standard Oven Thin Film Rolling Test is:

Asphalt binders typically lose volatiles during manufacturing and placemen processes. The elevated temperature of these asphalt binder processes ages by driving off a substantial amount of the volatile compounds. Field tests have shown that instead of asphalt binder it does not lose a significant amount of volatile compounds during its life.