Thermal Expansion of Stainless Steel Foil

The expansion coefficient remains the same. what will change is the heat saturation an dissipation between the thicknesses. I would suggest a weighted tensioner rather than a fixed or spring loaded mounting, not knowing your application.

More details:

It is a typical web handling system, which is familiar to me. What I'm not familiar with is the 1000°C temperatures which I must bring the foil up to, and then cool it again before rewinding. There will be several directional changes due to rollers, between the main unwind and re-wind spools.

I can calculate the expansion due to the heat, now that I know it's the same as thicker material. But our customer is suggesting we re-wind the material after cooling it to 100°C. I'm trying to make sure that I have acceptable tension control and also that the expanded state at 100°C is not going to cause any problems if it is rewinded at that temperature, and then further cools down to ambient while it is already tightly wound upon itself.

Why do you suggest a weighted tensioner rather than a spring type? Actually, though, I will probably use a sensor system to maintain a given tension.

The other issue I must solve is how long it will take a 12" wide web of that material to cool down from 1000C to 100C if I do not apply any cooling to it. I'd use this as my baseline to determine what type of forced air or refrigerant I would need for maximum efficiency. I don't know the exact alloy yet, but am using 304SS for my model.

I would have the same concern regarding further cooling to ambient temps. Weight loaded tensioner would remain constant throughout, spring loaded would not. But if you got the bucks for sensors and attendant firmware, go for it.

"The other issue I must solve ... " - the cooling rate's bound to depend on the ambient conditions - I doubt whether anyone could give you the answers just like that. In your shoes, I'd do a mock-up, if I had a chance.

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