Metal expansion question

So I've got this metal bar (mild steel) and it's flat and 0.19" thick. Well, it *was* 0.19" until I measured it today and now it's put on an extra 9.5 thou which I can only attribute to the weather. I'm guessing I probably originally measured it at 10C and today it's 20C. But would

10 degrees C really make that much difference? I trimmed it down from 0.2" to make a shim and this extra few thou is really buggering things up.

Ta.

Dave Dagenham, UK

Reply to
Dave Johnson
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Finger trouble. I reckon it should have expanded around 0.02 thou. Assuming 10 degrees and a k of 12.5e-6/deg C

Reply to
newshound

I'm not much good with inches and thou any more, particularly when mixed with degrees C. But:

The coefficient of thermal expansion of steel is around 10^-5 per degree C.

You raised the temperature by 10C, so your shim increased by 10 ^-4 (one-ten-thousandth) of it's original thickness, ie it increased by a fraction of a thou due to the temperature increase.

The original thickness was 190 thou, and that should have increased to

190.2 thou due to the temperature increase.

At least, I think that's correct. :)

Reply to
GB

I knew that was wrong! 190.02, not 190.2.

Reply to
GB

Same measuring tool, or different? Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff (Sofa

Same.

Dave,

Dagenham, UK

Reply to
Dave Johnson

He may have been asking who made the measurements? ;)

Reply to
GB

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Nice one. ;->

Dave,

Dagenham, UK

Reply to
Dave Johnson

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