Contact-free thermal expansion measurement of very soft elastomers using digital image correlation
Abstract(#br)The coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) is a critical material property that represents the dimensional stability of a material under thermal loading. For soft materials such as elastomers, accurate measurement of the CTE is challenging due to the severe local deformation of the specimen in contact with the measuring apparatus. In this paper, a contact-free CTE measurement method is introduced for soft polymers using three-dimensional digital image correlation. The accuracy of the method was validated using various reference materials.