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Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE A (Applied Physics & Engineering)  2014, Vol. 15 Issue (5): 323-330    DOI: 10.1631/jzus.A1400051
Energy Engineering     
Measurement of thermal expansion at low temperatures using the strain gage method
Ke Tang, Long Sha, Yi-jian Li, Tao Jin, Shu-juan Liu
Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
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Abstract  Accurate thermal expansion data of material at low temperatures are important in material selection and structural design for a cryogenic system. In this study, an experimental setup with a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) temperature control system was developed to measure the thermal expansion of solid materials at low temperatures (77–293 K), using the strain gage method. To avoid the impact of the varied sensitivity coefficient of the strain gage with the temperature to ensure an accurate measurement, we corrected the sensitivity coefficient in the temperature range of 77–293 K, by comparing the measured thermal expansion data for 304 stainless steel with the source data from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA. With the corrected sensitivity coefficient of the strain gage, the measured linear contractions of oxygen-free copper become quite consistent with the NIST data (with a relative deviation of 2.37%) for the cooling-down process from 293 K to 80 K.

Key wordsThermal expansion      Linear contraction      Strain gage method      Cryogenic temperature     
Received: 13 February 2014      Published: 04 May 2014
CLC:  TB302  
Cite this article:

Ke Tang, Long Sha, Yi-jian Li, Tao Jin, Shu-juan Liu. Measurement of thermal expansion at low temperatures using the strain gage method. Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE A (Applied Physics & Engineering), 2014, 15(5): 323-330.

URL:

http://www.zjujournals.com/xueshu/zjus-a/10.1631/jzus.A1400051     OR     http://www.zjujournals.com/xueshu/zjus-a/Y2014/V15/I5/323

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