Wikipedia
Thermal shock occurs when a thermal gradient causes different parts of an object to expand by different amounts. This differential expansion can be understood in terms of stress or of strain, equivalently. At some point, this stress can exceed the strength of the material, causing a crack to form. If nothing stops this crack from propagating through the material, it will cause the object's structure to fail.
Failure due to thermal shock can be prevented by;
- Reducing the thermal gradient seen by the object, by changing its temperature more slowly or increasing the material's thermal conductivity
- Reducing the material's coefficient of thermal expansion
- Increasing its strength
- Introducing built-in compressive stress, as for example in tempered glass
- Decreasing its Young's modulus
- Increasing its toughness, by crack tip blunting (i.e., plasticity or phase transformation) or crack deflection
Usage examples of "thermal shock".
The thermal shock to the planet will be ten times that of the past two months.
These materials may lead to hyperalloys capable of sustaining the thermal shock of a nuke at close range.
Security Guard Reinhart's phaser had been on setting four, producing a thermal shock wave that had been carried through the monofila.
Borosilicate glass, such as that sold under the trademark Pyrex, is preferred, because it is especially resistant to acids, high temperatures, and sudden changes in temperature (thermal shock).
It was impossible to know precisely how much thermal shock the solenoid cores could take, or exactly when they would be ready.
Petrified inside this ice shroud, a man just simply and quickly freezes to death--in the unlikely event, that is, of his heart's having withstood the thermal shock of the body's surface being exposed to an almost instantaneous hundred-degree drop in temperature.
The ballistic impact blinds him and the thermal shock gives him an ice-cream headache.
Mara splashed it all over herself, trying not to sputter too much with the thermal shock.
The kinetic and thermal shock instantly vaporized a significant percentage of the target mass.
For years the British had nursed it, for instance keeping it continually powered to save the valves from the thermal shock of being switched on and off.