Thermal engineering design project: a linear thermal expansion apparatus

R. S. MULLISEN, Mechanical Engineering Department, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California 93407, USA. rmullise@calpoly.edu
Received 6th September 1999 Revised 31st January 2000 A thermal engineering design project requiring the design, construction, and operation of an apparatus that determines the liner thermal expansion of a slender aluminium rod is described in this paper. The authors design employed a radially constrained and axially free aluminium rod in an electrically heated, copper-tube oven. Thermal expansion was measured with a lever-arm rotating a mirror that reflected a laser beam. A class of junior (third year) mechanical engineering students, working in teams, produced designs using specifically designed air ovens, direct heating with an electric resistance wire wrap, and hot-water baths. Thermal expansion measurements employed dial gauges, dial callipers, micrometers, optical projections including laser beam reflection, and strain gauges. A plot of the accumulated data, comprised of 466 data points, produced a linear curve-fit whose slope gave the average coefficient of linear thermal expansion over the temperature range 20C to 100C. Most of the data clustered rather well around the published coefficient of liner thermal expansion line. Key words: design, thermal expansion NOMENCLATURE L L0 R2 T T0 z length, mm initial length, mm correlation coefficient, dimensionless temperature, C or K initial temperature, C or K projected laser beam displacement, mm coefficient of linear thermal expansion, m (mK) or K1 average coefficient of linear thermal expansion m (mK) or K1

INTRODUCTION Therefore it is very proper to make the Rods of Pendulums for Clocks, of Iron: They are not so good of Steel: and much worse of Brass; yet sometimes they are made of
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Copper, because it is not so liable to rust; but yet, that is wrong. So likewise the Measures of Yards or Feet should generally be made of Iron, that their Length may be as near as possible the same, Summer and Winter. Petrus van Muschenbroek 1745 Desaguliers [1] reported the experimental work of Dr Petrus van Muschenbroek, the ingenious Professor of Astronomy etc. at Ultrecht,. Muschenbroek performed a series of experiments in which he heated his sample rods with one to five candles fuelled by spirit of wine (alcohol). Elongation measurement was with a rack and pinion gear-set driving a dial indicator with 1 12500 inch divisions. He found that the linear thermal expansion of iron was less than that of steel or brass and therefore the superior material for a clocks pendulum and for measures of yards or feet. It is well known that most materials expand with an increase in temperature. A slender metal rod of length L will increase in length with an increase in temperaturethis linear thermal expansion is given by dL dT. We define the coefficient of linear thermal expansion using the thermal expansion per unit length as

1 dL L dT

(1)

An average coefficient of linear thermal expansion may be computed using measurements made over a given temperature range. A rod at temperature T0 with length L0 is heated to temperature T with corresponding length L. The average coefficient of linear thermal expansion over the temperature range T0 to T is

1 L L0 L0 T T0

(2)

Henning [2] measured the thermal expansion of an aluminium rod initially 1 m in length. He heated the rod from its initial temperature of 16C to 250C and found that the length increased by 5.720 mm. This gives = 24.4 10 6 K 1 a value that compares very well with Touloukians [3] data that gives = 24.9 10 6 K 1 over the same temperature range.

THE DESIGN PROJECT Excerpts from the design project assignment, given to a junior-level (third year), mechanical engineering class in thermal engineering, are given below.

Objective The objective of this project is engineering design, construction and operation of an apparatus to determine the average coefficient of linear thermal expansion, , of an aluminium rod over the temperature range 20C to 100C. The 4043 alloy aluminium welding rod is 2.38 mm in diameter and 914 mm long.
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Both the design and the method of testing must be safe and relatively simple. The apparatus must be inexpensive and easily duplicated by other engineering students. The emphasis is on a novel, simple design engineered to produce good results. Designs must not be complicated and must not require difficult, expensive, or extensive fabrication. Identified functional requirements In addition to the imposed functional requirements identify functional requirements that your design must fulfil in order to accurately obtain . Design Your physical design must fulfil all of the functional requirements and meet the objective the experimental determination of . Before assigning this project I developed my own design and obtained very good results. This will be described next followed by the students designs and then the collective results.

AUTHORS DESIGN In addition to the imposed functional requirements, four additional functional requirements were identified: the rod temperature must be uniform yet variable, the slender rod must not buckle, the elongation measurement equipment must have adequate sensitivity, and the measurement equipment must be dimensionally stable over the temperature range. I designed the insulated, electrically heated, copper-tube oven shown in Fig. 1. The welding rod inside the oven was constrained radially while free to expand axially. Thermal expansion was measured with a lever-arm rotating a mirror that reflected a laser beam projected on a laboratory wall. The uniform temperature functional requirement was accommodated with an isothermal oven made from a copper tube. The tube outer surface was covered with a uniform, spiral wrap of Type-K thermocouple wire over-wrapped with vinyl tape. The assembly was covered with foam rubber insulation. Additional insulation layers were added at the ends, after trial-and-error experimentation, to obtain near isothermal rod temperatures. The thermocouple wire was used as electric-resistance heater wire and was connected to a variable DC power supply to provide temperature control. Uniform contact between the heater wire and the copper tube is ensured by the vinyl tape over-wrap. The copper tube minimizes horizontal temperature gradients and the horizontal orientation eliminates vertical temperature gradients along the tube centre line where the aluminium rod is located. The non-buckling functional requirement was accommodated with a jig that provided radial constraint for the aluminium rod every 152 mm. This jig, shown in Fig. 2, was constructed from seven, evenly-spaced, aluminium disks epoxy-glued to two supporting aluminium welding rods with the subject rod in the centre. All three rods were identical. The subject rod was free to move axially in the jig but constrained from radial displacement. Type-K thermocouples were epoxy-glued at the ends and at the centre of one of the supporting aluminium rods. The subject rod was very lightly loaded in the axial direction by a spring-loaded lever-arm described next.
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(a)

(b)

(c) Fig. 1. The authors linear thermal expansion apparatus. (a) Sectional view of the components. (b) The insulated, copper tube oven with power supply and three thermocouple thermometers ready for operation. (c) The insulation removed, revealing the electric-resistance heater wire spiral wrap with vinyl tape over-wrap. The laser pointer is on the right end of the oven and the lever arm on the left end.
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Fig. 2. The two-rod jig that fits inside the oven. The outer two rods are glued to seven aluminium disks (two are visible). The inner rod (the subject rod) is free to expand axially while being radially restrained at the disk locations.

The sensitive measurement functional requirement was accommodated by a lever-arm rotating a mirror that reflected a laser beam. The lever arm is shown in Fig. 3. The laser beam was projected on a laboratory wall and provided a 383:1 amplification ratio. The dimensional stability functional requirement was accommodated by a steel frame. One end of the subject rod was restrained from axial displacement by a horizontal, stainless steel needle fitted into a centre punch at the rod end. This needle passed through foam rubber insulation and was supported by a rigid, external steel frame. The opposite end of the subject rod had a similar needle that also fitted into a centre-punch at the rod end. This needle was attached to a lever-arm with a mirror that reflected a laser beam. Both the lever-arm support and the opposite end needle restraint were attached to a rigid, steel frame thermally isolated from the copper-tube oven.

AUTHORS RESULTS The authors results appear in Table 1 and in Fig. 4. Table 1 contains data for 15 runs. The columns labelled T1, T2, T3 give the temperatures at the left end, centre, and right end of the rod and the column labelled T is the mean of these three temperatures. The z column represents the displacement of the laser beam projected on the laboratory wall. The (L L0) column gives the thermal expansion of the rod obtained through the geometry of the reflected laser beam providing a length amplification of 383. The (T T0) column shows the temperature above the initial temperature. The last column gives the thermal expansion divided by the initial length. Data from the last two columns are plotted in Fig. 4. A linear curve fit of this plot produces a slope of 2.18 105 K1 or 21.8 m (mK), with a correlation
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coefficient of 0.9996. This slope is ; it is only 0.4% lower than the 22.0 m (mK) value given in [4].

Fig. 3. The lever arm is spring loaded on the top end and carries a horizontal needle on the lower end. This needle makes contact with the end of the subject rod. A small mirror, used to turn the laser beam, is glued to the lever arm just above the pivot.

Table 1. Thermal linear expansion of 4043 aluminium Run T1(C) T2(C) T3(C) T(C) z (mm) 0 57.2 101.6 153.2 198.4 233.4 279.4 323.1 360.4 395.3 433.4 469.9 506.4 542.9 585.8 (L L0) (mm) 0.0000 0.1493 0.2652 0.4000 0.5180 0.6093 0.7294 0.8435 0.9409 1.0320 1.1315 1.2268 1.3221 1.4173 1.5293 (T T0) (K) 0.00 8.23 13.97 20.70 26.37 30.90 37.00 42.57 47.50 51.97 56.73 61.63 66.00 70.67 76.03 (L L0) L0 () 0.000000 0.000163 0.000290 0.000437 0.000566 0.000666 0.000798 0.000922 0.001029 0.001129 0.001237 0.001342 0.001446 0.001550 0.001673

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

25.2 33.1 38.5 45.1 50.7 55.0 61.0 66.5 71.5 75.9 80.7 85.5 89.7 94.2 99.3

25.0 33.6 39.7 46.6 52.6 57.0 63.2 68.8 73.6 78.0 82.6 87.6 91.9 96.6 101.9

25.1 33.3 39.0 45.7 51.1 56.0 62.1 67.7 72.7 77.3 82.2 87.1 91.7 96.5 102.2

25.10 33.33 39.07 45.80 51.47 56.00 62.10 67.67 72.60 77.07 81.83 86.73 91.10 95.77 101.13

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Fig. 4. Linear thermal expansion of 4043 aluminiumauthors results.

STUDENTS DESIGNS Two sections of a junior-level class in thermal engineering were assigned into 18 groups with four students per group. A summary of their designs appears in Table 2. Six groups used a direct contact between the heating source and the rod, seven groups used air ovens or a hot air environment, and five groups used water baths. For measurement equipment the following were used: dial indicators, lever arms with mechanical pointers or laser beam reflections, micrometers or callipers, projected light shadows, and electric resistance strain gauges. Not every group immediately identified the dimensional stability functional requirement. One group initially mounted their measurement equipment on the outer wall of their air oven, which was constructed from a length of PVC plastic tube. When the oven was heated it expanded more than the aluminium rod indicating a negative ! The problem was quickly remedied with an external, thermally isolated frame. In the process the value of trialand-error experimentation was obtained.

COLLECTIVE RESULTS The last two columns in Table 2 give the result and the corresponding linear curve fit correlation coefficient R2. The values ranged from 15.3 m (mK) to 30.0 m (mK). However, the R2 reported were all greater than 0.96. These results indicate a range of accuracy for , however each apparatus yielded very linear and good curve fits for their respective data. The 18 student groups submitted their results in two data columns that matched the last two columns in Table 1. All of these data were accumulated, including the authors, and plotted in Fig. 5. Collectively there are 466 data points. A linear curve fit of these data
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Table 2. Summary of designs Heating source

Resistance heating wire with spiral wrap around rod Resistance heating wire with spiral wrap around rod Resistance heating wire with spiral wrap around rod Lab table top Resistance heating wire with spiral wrap around rod Resistance heating wire with spiral wrap around rod Two preheated angle irons Lever arm pointer Micrometer depth gauge Flashlight cast shadow on wall Pivoting mirror with laser beam Same wood frame Dial indicator Same wood frame

Group

Environment

Enclosure/fixture

Measurement equipment

Measurement fixture

Notes

(m mK)
23.7

R2
0.995

Direct contact

Horizontal groove in wood with insulation

Direct contact

Horizontal exposed mount on wood frame

Machine screw moved mirror to calibrate laser spot Shadow of rod end fuzzy

20.2

0.998

Direct contact

Vertical groove in wood box

26.9

0.999

Direct contact

Vertical channel in nylon frame

Same nylon frame

Nylon frame expanded upon heating Same wood frame Contact between lever arm and rod indicated with light bulb circuit External wood frame Transient cooling of rod between 2 angle irons

23.4

Direct contact

Horizontal wood box

21.6

1.0

Direct contact

Horizontal space between two nested angle irons

Dial indicator

22.6

0.969

Table 2. (continued) Heating source Measurement equipment

2 strain gauges on rod, 2 temperature compensating gauges on Pyrex glass 2 strain gauges on rod, 2 temperature compensating gauges on carbon composite strip Dial gauge External aluminium frame Lab table top 100 mm length rod with 2 cemented strain gauges

Group

Environment

Enclosure/fixture

Measurement fixture

Notes

(m mK)
20.1

R2

Air

Cooking oven Cooking oven

8 Laboratory oven

Air

Laboratory oven

100 mm length rod with 2 cemented strain gauges

22.7

0.999

Air Resistance heating wires in enclosure Resistance heating wires in enclosure Digital depth gauge Hot-air gun, direct Hot-air gun, direct Lamps Pivoting mirror with laser beam Overhead projector shadow enlargement Lever arm pointer

Horizontal ceramic insulation enclosure

22.3

0.985

10

Air

Horizontal PVC pipe, insulated

23.4

0.998

11

Air

Horizontal wood box

Insulated wood box Same wood frame

Clear, enlarged image of rod end External steel frame Fan in box to circulate air

28.0 22.7

0.996 0.998

12

Air

Horizontal wood support, exposed rod

13

Air

Vertical wood box

16.3

0.969

Table 2. (continued) Heating source Measurement equipment

Lever arm pointer External wood frame Pour in hot water, transient cooling, non-uniform insulation Water agitated by hand stirring Circulation by windshield washer pump and reservoir Pump circulation between Cu and PVC sections Pour in hot water, propeller agitation, transient cooling

Group

Environment

Enclosure/fixture

Measurement fixture

Notes

(m mK)
15.3

R2

14

Water Pot on stove

Horizontal insulated metal conduit Camp stove Pot on stove Overhead projector shadow Dial indicator Metal bench top External wood frame Vernier callipers External wood frame

15

Water

Horizontal aluminium gutter

30.0 22.7

0.984 0.997

16

Water

Horizontal acrylic tube Propane torch on copper tube Pot on stove Dial indicator

17

Water

Horizontal PVC pipe

23.7

0.962

18

Water

Vertical metal tube, uninstalled

Drill press frame

20.0

0.996

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produces a slope ( ) of 2.51 105 K1 or 25.1 m (mK), with a correlation coefficient of 0.685. This collective result is 14.1% greater than the 22.0 m (mK) value given in [4].

Fig. 5. Linear thermal expansion of 4043 aluminiumcollective results.

CONCLUSIONS This project is one in a series [511] developed over the past five years in the area of handson, thermal engineering design. Based on 19 years of teaching experience the author believes these projects will help remedy two important shortcomings in mechanical engineering education: first is the lack of hands-on experience found in todays students and second is the incomplete inclusion of thermal science in design. The value of this project came from the experience of the design processthe identification of the functional requirements directing the design, the hands-on construction of the apparatus, the trial-and-error experimentation, and the data collection. Data reduction was very elementary. This thermal design project proved to be successful and provided an interesting challenge for the students owing to competition between the groups, final qualitative evaluation of their results benchmarked against the published literature, and even some desire to outperform the instructors design. During the last class meeting the author presented his design and results along with the collective results shown in Fig. 5. Enlarged copies of this figure were distributed to the class allowing students to identify their data in the field.
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R. S. Mullisen

The author wishes to thank the 70 students in both sections of ME 344 Thermal Engineering, winter quarter 1999 for their enthusiasm, energy, and productivity, which resulted in a successful assignment.

REFERENCES
[1] Desaguliers, J. T. A Course of Experimental Philosophy, Vol. I, The second edition corrected, W. Innys, T. Longman, T. Sgewek and C. Hitch, London, MDCCXLV, pp. 439446 and Plate 29. [2] Henning, F. Uber die Ausdehnung fester Krper bei tiefer Temperatur, Ann. d. Physik, 22, 631, 1907. [3] Touloukian, Y., Kirby, R., Taylor, R. and Desai, P. Thermophysical Properties of Matter, Vol. 12, Thermal Expansion Metallic Elements and Alloys, IFI/Plenum, New YorkWashington, 1975. [4] Boyer, H. E. and Gall, T., Metals Handbook Desk Edition, American Society for Metals, Metals Park, Ohio, 1985. [5] Mullisen, R. S. Thermal engineering design project: heat transfer from a cylinder in crossflow, International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education, 24(3), July 1996. [6] Mullisen, R. S., A friction-bearing calorimeter experiment yielding Joules constant, International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education, 24(4), October 1996. [7] Mullisen, R. S. Two strain plasticity experiments yielding Joules constant, International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education, 25(1), January 1997. [8] Mullisen, R. S. Thermal engineering design project: friction calorimeter yielding Joules constant, International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education, 24(3), July 1997. [9] Mullisen, R. S., Thermal engineering design project: disk brake cooling simulation, International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education, 25(4), October 1997. [10] Mullisen, R. S. Thermal engineering design project: an apparatus for determining the density of water in the neighborhood of 4C, International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education, 27(2), 102112, 1999. [11] Mullisen, R. S. Thermal engineering design project: an apparatus for determining the viscosity of water as a function of temperature, International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education, 29(1), 1326, 2001.

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