On the Nonuniform Distributions of Temperature and Thermal Stress in DTA Testing

A nonuniform distribution of temperature across the solid specimen during differential thermal analysis (DTA) can cause thermal stress. The effect of such thermal stress and the resulting thermal strain energy on the DTA results is theoretically analyzed. It is found that, for most solid metallic specimens, the temperature nonuniformity in the solid specimen is less than 0.18 °C during normal DTA operation. The thermal stress and thermal strain are usually very small due to the small size of the specimen, and they do not have a substantial effect on the DTA results.