Estimation of the transverse coefficient of thermal expansion on carbon fibers at very high temperature

Abstract

The main objective of this work is to present a new method for measuring the transverse coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of fibers at very high temperature. The difficulty of the measurement is due to the thin fiber diameter (≈10∈μm), the low variation with temperature of the fiber diameter (≈10-30∈nm), and finally the important range of temperature (300-2800∈K). An experimental device was designed for the measurement and an inverse method has been developed for identification. The characterization, with a confidence interval lower than 8%, of tungsten and carbon fibers allows the validation of this device and the related estimation method.