Thermal Expansion of Copper from 20 to 800 K—Standard Reference Material 736

Copper is the first of a series of materials that will be certified as thermal-expansion standards by the National Bureau of Standards. The results of tests on five specimens indicate the stock is of consistent quality so that it may be certified as Standard Reference Material 736. A Fizeau interferometer was used for the expansion measurements. Above room temperature a controlled-atmosphere furnace using a calibrated Pt vs Pt-10% Rh thermocouple was used. Below room temperature a cryostat capable of operation with both liquid nitrogen and helium was used with a calibrated platinum resistance thermometer. Values of expansivity were calculated between equilibrium temperatures. The expansivity was used in the analysis of the data. Third-order polynomials were fitted to the data for each of the five specimens in the overlapping temperature ranges from 0 to 70 K, 50 to 270 K, and 210 to 800 K to test for variations between the specimens. The deviations between the five equations were well within the standard deviations of the data for each of the specimens in the respective temperature intervals. All the expansivity data were then pooled and used to obtain an equation for each of the temperature ranges given above. These equations and their integrals were used to calculate the final values of expansivity and expansion, respectively. The results of the statistical analysis of the expansion and expansivity data are presented. A comparison is made with the data in the literature.