A program controlled, inductively heated, compact high temperature dilatometer was designed and built. The dilatometer is capable of measuring the thermal expansion of arc‐melted hemispherical metal samples as small as 1.5 mm high by 3.2 mm diam up to 1600°C. The design of the instrument incorporates a linear variable differential transformer (LVDT) transducer with a sensitivity of 1.02×10−3mm/mV.