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Physics 157 Tutorial 5
This tutorial gives you practice thinking about ideal gases as thermodynamics systems.
This week, we’ll focus on using the ideal gas law to calculate properties of a system after
changes in pressure/volume/temperature with one of these quantities fixed, and on
calculating the work done by a gas during some process.
Important formulae and tips: The ideal gas law relates the pressure of a gas to its
volume, temperature, and number of moles n via:
PV=nRT
When we have some process that changes some of these quantities but keeps the
number of moles fixed, it is often useful to relate the initial quantities to the final
quantities by
P1 V1 / T1 = P2 V2 / T2
This simplifies even more when pressure, volume, or temperature are fixed during the
process.
During any process, we define W to be the work done by the gas. For a constant
pressure process, this is equal to
W = P ΔV
so the work is positive when the gas expands, and negative when the gas is compressed.
When the pressure is changing, we need to calculate the work by breaking the process
up into small parts with approximately constant pressure, and using that the work for
each infinitesimal part is
dW = P dV
The total work can then be written as an integral between initial and final volumes:
W=∫ 𝑃(𝑉)𝑑𝑉
where P(V) is the function that gives the pressure P at volume V. A simple way to
understand this is that it W is the area under the graph of P vs V, taken between the
initial and final points with a +/- sign if the volume increases/decreases.
Problem 1: A certain amount of gas, initially at 300K is contained in a cylinder with a movable
piston on top. The graph above shows the pressure vs volume for a cyclical process in which:
I) The gas is heated with the piston fixed in place.
II) The gas is heated further while the forces that were holding the piston in place are removed
in a controlled way.
III) The gas is cooled down, letting the piston move freely with the outside pressure at
atmospheric pressure.
a) Label the three segments of the graph above with I, II, and III, showing which segment
corresponds to which process. Draw an arrow on each segment to show which direction we are
moving.
b) Calculate the temperature at the points A, B, and C.
TA = TB = TC =
c) Calculate the work W done by the gas for each segment, indicating whether the work is
positive or negative (note: 1kPa × 1L = 1J). Also calculate the net work for the cycle:
WI = WII = WIII = Wnet =
d) How many moles of gas are there?
Problem 2: The cylinder of gas from the previous cycle is taken when it is in the state A, and
placed in a container of steam at the same temperature as the gas inside. The gas is now
allowed to expand with its temperature remaining fixed, until the volume has increased by a
factor of five.
a) Draw this process on the graph below, showing the final point and several accurately drawn
intermediate points.
b) Using the graph, estimate the work done by the gas during this process.
W=
c) Now we’ll do a more accurate calculation of the work using the integral formula. First, we
need to write an expression the gives the pressure in terms of the volume. Write this
expression below. V should be the only variable appearing in your expression:
P(V) =
d) Now calculate the work by the integral formula on page 1. The basic method is
i) Find a function F(V) which has the property that its derivative F’(V) equals P(V)
ii) Use the basic calculus result that ∫ 𝑃(𝑉)𝑑𝑉 = F(Vf) - F(Vi)
F(V) =
W=
Problem 3 (extra if you have time; involves some material from next week but included
here since no tutorials next week): For these kinds of problems, the other thing that you will
often be asked to do is to find the heat Q that enters the gas during each step. To do this, we
need to use two extra pieces of physics:
i) When heat Q flows into a gas during a process, some of this energy is used up when the gas
does work, and the rest increases the energy U of the gas itself (e.g. the kinetic energy of the
molecules). This is summarized by the First Law of Thermodynamics:
Q = ΔU + W
ii) The change in energy ΔU of an ideal gas can be calculated directly from the change in
temperature by
ΔU = n Cv ΔT
where Cv is the molar heat capacity at constant volume1 and Cv = 3R/2 for a monatomic ideal
gas.
Your basic solution strategy to find Q is to first calculate W and ΔU and then use the First Law
to find Q.
a) For the process in question 1, calculate ΔU and Q for each step, assuming the gas is a
monatomic ideal gas with Cv = 3/2R.
ΔUI =
QI =
ΔUII =
QII =
ΔUIII =
QIII =
b) What is the net heat QI + QII + QIII that enters the gas during the cycle? How does this
compare to the net work done? Is this what you expect? Why?
c) For the process in question 2, calculate ΔU and Q.
ΔU =
Q=
1
Remember that Cv was defined by Q = n Cv ΔT for a gas at constant volume. Here, there is no work, so Q = ΔU.
