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THERMAL EXPANSION: CTE

DEFINITIONS AND THERMAL STRAIN
DECEMBER 11, 2014 | JUSTIN VERDIRAME | LEAVE A COMMENT

This entry discusses different definitions of CTE, their relation to thermal strain, how to
convert between the different forms, and how to use them in a model. The forms discussed
below include instantaneous coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), secant coefficient of
thermal expansion, and direct use of a thermal strain function.

Figure 1

Hooke’s law for a linear, isotropic elastic material may be written as

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where is the thermal strain. The thermal strain appears only in the normal
strains but not the shear strains. Thermal strain is a volumetric expansion or contraction
and one can show via symmetry arguments that thermal strain should not appear in the
shear strains for an isotropic material.

Figure 2

The most common model of thermal strain is with a linear function of temperature and
constant CTE (coefficient of thermal expansion) (see Figure~2)

(1)

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where is the coefficient of thermal expansion, or CTE, is the temperature

of the element of interest, and is the reference temperature at which there is zero ther-
mal strain.

However if the thermal strain is nonlinear, then a different expression must be used to cal-
culate the thermal strain at a given temperature (see Figure~1). First, one can use the ther-
mal strain function itself. Within Ansys one can specify the thermal strain material proper-
ty using THSX at the temperatures specified with MPTEMP. Secondly, one can specify the
instantaneous coefficient of thermal expansion. The instantaneous CTE is the derivative of
the thermal strain function at the temperature of interest.

To calcuate the thermal strain from the instantaneous coefficient of thermal expansion,
one must use integration between and thus know the thermal strain at one temperature to
obtain the integration constant.

The instantaneous thermal strain function may be input into ansys using the material prop-
erty CTEX at the temperatures specified with MPTEMP.

Another way of specifying the thermal expansion is with an average slope of the thermal
strain curve between the temperature of interest and a reference temperature as
shown in Figure~1. This is called the secant coefficient of thermal expansion.

One may express the thermal strain as a function of the secant CTE

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The secant thermal strain function may be input into ansys using the material property
ALPX at the temperatures specified with MPTEMP.

One can also convert between instantaneous and secant CTE using

where T is the temperature of interest and is the reference temperature. This relation is
derived by the fact that the area under the instantaneous CTE curve and area under the
averaged or secant CTE line are both equal to the thermal strain.

Specification of coefficients of thermal expansion

Information on the CTE for speciic materials can often be found in manufacturers’ catalogs,
textbooks, or websites like MatWeb, but sometimes it is difficult to know what exactly is
being specified.

For a material with a varying CTE, the CTE is typically specified over a temperature range.
Let us take as an example the low expansion glass ceramic Zerodur (see for example Schott
TIE-37: Thermal expansion of Zerodur http://fp.optics.arizona.edu/optomech/refer-
ences/glass/Schott/tie-37_thermal_expansion_of_zerodur_v2_us.pdf). They specify the
CTE over the range 0~deg~C to 50~deg~C. They are specifying the secant CTE. Within this
temperature range, the instantaneous CTE may deviate from the secant CTE. As shown
above, if the thermal strain curve is linear in a given temperature range, then the secant
CTE is the same as the instantaneous CTE. This document on Zerodur also includes what is
called TCL (total change of length) curves, which are identical to thermal strain

Often in precision engineering applications, one finds that the catalog values do not con-
tain enough detail of the thermal strain or CTE for calculations. For low CTE materials such
as ULE, Zerodur, Super Invar, Cordierite, the manufacturer can typically supply more pre-
cise values of thermal strain or instantaneous CTE than is listed in the catalogs. Additional-
ly, the CTE of these materials can be tailored by the manufacturer to meet specific require-
ments.

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The Ansys Mechanical APDL Theory Reference manual serves as as a good resource for
this topic.

CTE INSTANTANEOUS CTE SECANT CTE THERMAL EXPANSION THERMAL STRAIN

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