A noncontact measurement technique for the density and thermal expansion coefficient of solid and liquid materials

A noncontact measurement technique for the density and the thermal expansion coefficient of refractory materials in their molten as well as solid phases is presented. This technique is based on the video image processing of a levitated sample. Experiments were performed using the high-temperature electrostatic levitator (HTESL) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in which 2–3 mm diam samples can be levitated, melted, and radiatively cooled in vacuum. Due to the axisymmetric nature of the molten samples when levitated in the HTESL, a rather simple digital image analysis can be employed to accurately measure the volumetric change as a function of temperature. Density and the thermal expansion coefficient measurements were made on a pure nickel sample to test the accuracy of the technique in the temperature range of 1045–1565 °C. The result for the liquid phase density can be expressed by ρ=8.848+(6.730×10−4)×T (°C) g/cm3 within 0.8% accuracy, and the corresponding thermal expansion coefficient can be expressed by β=(9.419×10−5) −(7.165×10−9)×T (°C) K−1 within 0.2% accuracy.