What happens to a hole in flat metal plate expands on being heated?

Question

does the hole gets smaller or bigger?

Answer 1

The hole will get larger like it was filled.

Think of a ring made of a small diameter cable, say 1/10 the diameter of the ring. Now, heat it up so that it expands 10%. The ring is now 10% larger diameter wise, and the cable is also 10% bigger in thickness. But this 10% increase in width of the cable only represents 1% of the ring diameter, not enough to take away the increase in the ring diameter.

Answer 2

Every linear dimension increases by the same percentage with a change in temperature, including holes.