= Testing a differential thermal actuator
A proposed bench test can isolate the mechanism without a gas burner. Illuminate a blackened and a polished sample of matched material and geometry, record both <temperatures> and their relative displacement, then block the beam. Measure incident <irradiance> separately. Swap the surface treatments, hold the ambient <temperature> fixed for the illumination test, and change it with the beam blocked for a common-heating control. This is a model-based experiment proposal, not a report of measurements.
A larger response of the dark sample would support a difference in absorbed <power>; the displacement and cooling curves test the assumed <linear thermal expansion coefficient> and <time constant>. A stable illumination step that never reaches the switching gap challenges the chosen parameter model rather than the existence of <thermal expansion>. Nonuniform sample <temperature>, unequal losses and mechanical friction can separate the physical device from the ideal equations.
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