Thermal expansion

The simulation shows a ring. At a temperature of 0 degrees Celsius, the inner radius of the ring is 100 cm, and the outer radius is 200 cm, so the width of the ring is 100 cm. The red line on the ring is magnified by a factor of eight, to try to zoom in on the expansion or contraction that happens when the temperature changes.

With the slider, the temperature can be adjust from 200 degrees C below zero to 200 degrees C above zero. One thing to notice is that you have to look very closely to see the impact of the temperature change. The change in length of the 100 cm thick ring is not very large. Note that the two ends of the red line do not move the same amounts? What is the ratio of the change the ends experience? (The assumption is that the center of the ring does not move.) Also, the coefficient of thermal expansion here is just slightly larger than that of aluminum.

Simulation written by Andrew Duffy, and first posted on 8-28-2018.

This work by Andrew Duffy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
This simulation can be found in the collection at http://physics.bu.edu/~duffy/classroom.html.

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