What is the significance of the coefficient of linear expansion and what role does it...

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Chemistry

What is the significance of the coefficient of linear expansion and what role does it play in engineering design? When is it desirable to join two metals having like coefficients of linear expansion? Different coefficients?

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The expansion and contraction of materials must be considered when designing large structures when using tape or chain to measure distances for land surveys when designing molds for casting hot material and in other engineering applications when large changes in dimension due to temperature are expected Thermal expansion is also used in mechanical applications to fit parts over one another eg a bushing can be fitted over a shaft by making its inner diameter slightly smaller than the diameter of the shaft then heating it until it fits over the shaft and allowing it to cool after it has been pushed over the shaft thus achieving a shrink fit Induction shrink fitting is a common industrial method to preheat metal components between 150 C and 300 C thereby causing them to expand and allow for the insertion or removal of another component There exist some alloys with a very small linear expansion coefficient used in applications that demand very small changes in physical dimension over a range of temperatures One of these is Invar 36 with approximately equal to 06106 K1 These alloys are useful in aerospace applications where wide See Answer

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