Thermal Expansion

Abstract

The length L of a rod increases with increasing temperature. Experiments have shown that in a relatively wide temperature range the linear expansion ΔL is proportional to the increase in temperature ΔT. The proportionality constant is called the coefficient of linear expansion α_L. The observations can be summarized in

$$ \frac{{\Delta L}}{L} = {\alpha _L}\Delta T $$

((22.1))

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