Thermal Expansion

Directions: Solve the following problems correctly. Show you systematic solution
on the space provided after each item. Apply the proper number of significant
figures in expressing your final answer. Box your final answer.

1. During winter, why is it important to protect water pipes?

 Ideally, water pipes should be kept in heated spaces only. Because when
water freezes, the water pipes expands, which can cause to burst—flooding the
basement, ruining drywall, and costing thousands of money for repairs.

2. Why is it advisable to allow telephone lines to sag when stringing them

between pokes in summer?

All copper wires expand when they heat and contract when they cool. Wires
between poles expand due to the rise in atmospheric temperature, as these wires
are made of aluminum alloy with other metal. When the wires expand they
develop sag. So an allowable amount of sag is calculated into the wire length to
accommodate the forces such as gravity, wind, and thermal expansion.

3. What is the change in length of a metal rod with an initial length of 2 meters, a
coefficient of thermal expansion 0.00002 /K and a temperature change of 20 K?

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4. Suppose you have a 0.05 L container made of glass that is at283 K. You raised
its temperature to 303 K. By how much will its volume increase? (glass =
25.5x10-6 1/K)

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5. A steel rail is 24.4 m long. How much does it expand during a day when the
low temperature is 291 K and high temperature is 306 K? (Steel = 12 x10 1/K)
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6. The length of a brass bar is 150cm at 40 C. What will be its length at 100 C?(α =
19 x 10-6/K)

7. An aluminum flag pole is20.0 m tall on a -15 C winter’s day. How much higher
will the flag fly from the pole on a hot 42 C summer day?

8. What amount of change in temperature did a 0.25 kg copper metal undergo

when it is initially5.0 m long and expanded by 0.00002 m?

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9. 24. 9. A glass flask whose volume is 1000.0cm 3 at 0.0 C is completely filled
with mercury at this temperature. When flask and mercury are warmed to 80.0
C, 12.5 cm3 of mercury overflow. Compute the coefficient of volume expansion
of the glass.

10. Most bridges contain interlocking steel grates (α steel = 1.2 x 10 - 5 ºC -1) that
allow the bridge to expand and contract with the changes in temperature. The
Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is about 1350 meters long.

a. The seasonal temperature variation in San Francisco ranges from about 0ºC
to 30ºC. How much will the bridge expand between these two extremes?

b. What percent of the length of a subcompact automobile, 2.5 meters, does

this gap represent?

11. Selena has a fire in her fireplace to warm her 20ºC apartment. She realizes that
she has accidentally left the iron poker (α iron = 1.2 x 10- 5 ºC-1) in the fire. How
hot is the fire if the 0.60-meter poker lengthens 0.30 cm?

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12. Just before midnight, when the air temperature is 10.0ºC, Karl stops and fills the
0.0600 m3 gas tank in his car. At noon the next day, when the temperature has
risen to 32ºC, Karl finds a puddle of gasoline (βgas = 3 x 10-4 ºC-1) beneath his car.
How much gasoline spilled out of Karl's car? (assume that there was virtually
no change in the volume of his tank).

13. As he rides the train to work on a -4ºC winter day, Mr. Trump notices that he
can hear the click of the train going over the spaces between the rails. Six
months later, on a 30ºC summer day, the rails are pushed together and he hears
no clicks. If the rails are 5 meters long when the temperature is 30ºC, how large
a gap is left between the steel rails (α steel = 1.2 x 10 - 5 ºC -1) on the cold winter
day?

14. A popular winter activity of many college students is "traying," or sliding down
a snow-covered hill on a tray borrowed from the dining hall. If Joanne removes
a 0.35 m x 0.65 m aluminum tray (α aluminum = 2.4 x 10-5 ºC-1) from the 20ºC
dining hall to go traying outside in the brisk -8ºC winter air, how much will the
tray shrink when it is taken outside?