Can somebody please give me some general figures on the difference in thermal expansion coefficients between steel and fibreglass. I would have thought steel had a higher coefficient but I have been told otherwise and can’t find any solid data myself. Thanks in advance.
Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations MintJulep on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
Thermal Expansion - Steel Vs Fibreglass
- Thread starter MadDog88
- Start date
Go to Matweb at:
For a general thermoset polyester Sheet Molding Composite (fiberglass material used for automobile panels) they list a CTE of 24 - 40 µm/m-°C. For a typical carbon steel, it is 12.2 µm/m-°C.
The reason for this is "fiberglass" has discontinuous reinforcement and incomplete reinforcement wetting. This means the thermal expansion is influenced heavily by the matrix properties, which are low for polymers.
For a general thermoset polyester Sheet Molding Composite (fiberglass material used for automobile panels) they list a CTE of 24 - 40 µm/m-°C. For a typical carbon steel, it is 12.2 µm/m-°C.
The reason for this is "fiberglass" has discontinuous reinforcement and incomplete reinforcement wetting. This means the thermal expansion is influenced heavily by the matrix properties, which are low for polymers.
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
- Question
