[Physics] Finding coefficients of volumetric expandtion from a know coefficient of linear expandtion

homework-and-exercisesthermodynamics

Starting from a homework problem:

An aluminum cup of $100 cm^3$ capacity is completely filled with glycerin at $22°C$. How much glycerin, if any, will spill out of the cup if the temperature of both the cup and the glycerin is increased to $28°C$? (The coefficient of volume expansion of glycerin is $5.1×10^4/C°$.)

I find that I have the for efficient of linear expansion for aluminum, but I need to know how the volume of the cup changes. Worse, I don't know the dimensions of the cup.

I think I use the linear expansion equation for metal rod $\Delta L = L \alpha \Delta T$ to find how much taller the cup is after the temperature changed and the volume expansion equation for a solid of liquid $\Delta V = V \beta \Delta T$ but not knowing any of the dimension of the cup I do not see how to determine this?

Best Answer

To leading order in $\alpha$, the volume expansion of your container does not depend on its shape, and is equal to $\Delta V = 3V\alpha\Delta T$. It is fairly simple to verify this for a cylinder, cube or sphere. Also the expansion coefficient for aluminum is going to be quite a bit smaller than glycerol, so you may be intended to simply neglect the expansion of the container.