Measurement of coefficient of thermal expansion of films using digital image correlation method

Applications of the digital image correlation method (DIC) for the determination the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of films is investigated in this paper. A heating chamber was designed for applying thermal load and DIC provides the full-field thermal deformation fields of the test film sample due to temperature changes. The average normal strains in the x and y direction from the region of interest are then extracted for the determination of CTE. The influence of unavoidable small rigid body rotation is discussed and a method to eliminate it to show the pure thermal expansion of the test film is demonstrated. For validation, the CTE of a pure copper sample is determined and compared with the textbook value, confirming the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed technique. Finally, the CTE of Polyimide (PI) composite film in the temperature range of 20-140 °C is measured. The results reveal that the DIC is a practical and effective tool for full-field thermal deformation and CTE measurement of films.