The Automatic Breaking-Point Tester BPA 5 offers a series of outstanding advantages:

Easy to Operate
Due to its principle of construction ”measuring the bending force of a steel plaque coated with the material to be examined" and the use of thermoelectric elements for the cooling of the test chamber, the Automatic Breaking-Point Tester BPA 5 offers a series of outstanding advantages.

The handling of the BPA 5 is very easy. The operator only puts the specimen on to the plaque support and the BPA 5 automatically clamps and adjusts the test plaque.

The two-line alphanumeric display provides the operator with additional instructions during a test. When a test is completed, the final result remains on the display until a new measurement is started.

Economical
The BPA 5 is a very economical instrument. It uses Peltier-elements for the refrigeration of the test chamber. These solid-state cooling elements require a light auxiliary refrigerant only and thus avoid investing in a bulky and high energy consuming cooler.

Data Output
Although not required, the connection of a serial printer is recommended. The user will receive a test result for each flexion or any other interval (time or temperature according to the parameters set by the operator).

BPACon-Software
Most comfortable is the use of the BPA 5 together with a PC with BPACon-software. This software package (for Windows®) includes the Permanent-Bending-program. Further it permits to remote control the BPA 5 by PC, to create additional user-defi ned test programs and to store or reload them from a PC. The measured data can be easily saved and evaluated on a PC in numerical form and as well as a graphical diagram.

BPACon is, for instance, mandatory to run Permanent-Bending-Tests or when Glass-Transition-Temperatures are determined, where the trend of the bending force versus the temperature drops and the recovery trend serves as the criteria for the material under test.

Versatility
The scope not only covers the examination of bitumen according to the conventional FRAASS Method but also allows the user to adapt the test procedure to particular conditions (e.g. research of glass transition temperatures) or to perform a permanent bending program.

With the Standardized-FRAASS-Test-Method the instrument detects a distinct variation of the bending force or a typical deformation of the force/ temperature curve respectively. Just as if the BPA 5 user could look inside the material under test.

These striking force characteristics can even be recognized with difficult materials (such as certain kinds of bitumen), where ruptures of the bitumen coating cannot be observed visually.

In particular with Polymer-modified Bitumen (PmB), the Permanent-Bending-Program is an interesting alternative to the conventional FRAASS method. The sample is cooled to a specified temperature and then the number of bending strokes is counted which are necessary to cause a rupture.

This program, however, requires a PC with BPAConsoftware to remote-control the BPA 5, for storage and evaluation of the measured data. Thus, test proceedings (e.g. variation of the bending force) can be easily watched via a graphic diagram on the PC screen.

For samples with a very low breaking-point a Rapid-Test-Program is included. It cools with an accelerated rate of 2 K/min in the beginning and then changes to the standardized cooling rate during the actual test period.

In order to avoid unnecessary tests, with samples where the breaking-point is not known at all, the SEARCH-Mode, which is preset in the USER program, can be used beneficially.
The instrument works with a refrigeration rate of 2 K/min and makes a bending test every 2 Kelvin.

The BPA 5 also offers the possibility to change test parameters like bending speed, cooling rate or bending intervals and to store them as a USER-Defined-Program.

Automatic Fraass Test Equipment

More details are mentioned in the "Order Number" section