Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Rives, C..
Precise stable laser system determines coefficients of thermal expansion. Dual-beam interferometer arrangement monitors changes in sample length as function of temperature by following changes inoptical path lengths.
A system for measuring the expansion of low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) materials was constructed around a H.P. 5526-A laser measuring system. The vacuum CTE measurements in the -150 F to +120 F range were made over a 6 month period on a graphite epoxy tube yielding CTE values of 2.5 to one fifty-millionth/F above ambient and 2 + or - one ten-millionth F below ambient temperature. To assure that the below ambient, approximately 10 microns high open loop nature of the delta L/L vs. T curves was not apparatus related, similar size quartz tubes (A and B) were checked and found to have only a 2 micron (negligable for quartz) open loop component. These two quartz tubes, A and B, had ambient CTE values 20% and 45% respectively higher than the average handbook value. The overnight microcreep diminished an order of magnitude during the first several cycles after the system had been reopened.