Mechanical Technoloy

Lecture 5 – PV diagram
Methods of heating and expanding
gases

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 THE FIRST LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS
 The first law states that energy can be neither created nor destroyed
during a process; it can only change forms.

Energy
cannot be
created or
destroyed; The increase in the energy of a
it can only potato in an oven is equal to the
change amount of heat transferred to it.
forms. 2 2
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The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics
 Heat will never be seen to flow spontaneously (naturally)
from a colder object to a hotter object
 Work is required to force heat to flow heat from a colder
object to a hotter object.

Cold Body Hot Body

Heat
 For example, a cup of hot coffee left on a table eventually cools, but a
cup of cool coffee in the same room never gets hot by itself

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Compression Process P-V
Diagram

 A PV diagram
is a graph of
Pressure as a
function of
Volume.
Compression
process

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PV diagram:

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 Common Thermodynamic
processes
 Isobaric → constant pressure
(e.g. heating of water in open air→ under atmospheric pressure)
 Isothermal process → the process takes place at constant temperature
(e.g. Phase change is a isothermal process) Hint: Latent and sensible heat
 Melting of solids, there is state change. During state change any energy
supplied or liberated is due to latent heat which wont show on
temperature scale.
 Isochoric /Isometric/Isovolumetric process → constant volume
(e.g. heating of gas in a sealed metal container)
 Adiabatic process → dq is zero during the process (no heat is added/removed
to/from the system)

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 Isobaric Process
 Isobaric → constant pressure
(e.g. heating of water in open air→ under
atmospheric pressure)

Area under the curve is the

work done.

 A cylinder of gas is heated so that it expands while keeping its pressure

constant.
 The gas will do work against the piston as it expands, where W = Fd.
 The force is caused by the pressure acting on the surface area of the
piston, so we can use the formula... F = PA
 W = Fd ..(1), F = PA ....(2)
 Combining 1 & 2 W = PAd
 W = - PΔV
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Heating of a Gas at Constant Pressure

Example: A piston cylinder device contains air at 350 kPa and enclosed volume is 400 L.
The air is now heated until its volume has doubled. Determine the work done by the air.

1 Liter= 0.001 cubic meter

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In Class assignment
 Example 1: A gas at 4.0e5 Pa is in a cylinder with a piston.
During an isobaric process the gas is heated and expands from
0.25 m3 to 0.55 m3. Determine the work done by the gas on
the cylinder, and sketch a PV diagram of the situation.

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
Isothermal process
Isothermal process → the process takes place at constant temperature. Change in the
temperature is zero
(e.g. slow boiling of water. The heat input will be equal to the heat absorbed in
evaporation and the temperature will remain constant.)
We know that internal energy U is directly proportional to T
Here, change in Temperature= 0, so change in U= 0

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Isothermal process
 The line is called an
isotherm, because the
temperature stayed the
same.
 The isotherm is a curve.
This happens because
when the piston was
being released there was
a sudden drop in
pressure as the gas
expanded.
 As the process continued
the pressure dropped
more slowly as the
volume increased.

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Isothermal process

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Isothermal process

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Isochoric/Isometric/Isovolumetric process
 Isochoric → constant volume
(e.g. heating of gas in a sealed metal container)

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Isochoric process
 In an isochoric process the gas must keep a constant
volume, so we will put the gas in a sealed container that
can not change size or shape.
 As we heat it up more and more, the gas will want to
expand even though it can't.
 This will result in an increase of pressure inside the
cylinder.
 The increase in pressure will also create more force
against the sides of the cylinder, but since nothing is
moving, no work is done. W = Fd = F (0) = 0 J
 The first law of thermodynamics shows that since no
work is being done (W = 0 J), all that heat being added
just increases the internal energy. ΔU = Q + W, ΔU = Q
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 We can look at isochoric processes using the ideal gas law
also.
 Now the volume (V) stays constant, along with the amount of
gas (n), and the gas constant (R)... PV = nRT, P α T
• This shows us that the pressure is directly related to the
temperature. So, as the temperature increased while we
heated the cylinder, the pressure increased as well.

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Adiabatic process
 During an adiabatic process the heat transfer is zero, so
Q = 0 J. This could happen in a situation where the
cylinder is surrounded by an insulating material.
• According to the first law of thermodynamics, this
means...
U=Q+W
U=0+W
U=W
so the change in the internal energy is equal to the work
done on or by the gas.
◦ If the gas is compressed (work done on the gas is
positive) the internal energy increases.
◦ If the gas expands (work done by the gas is negative)
the internal energy decreases.
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 The PV diagram for an adiabatic
process is shown in fig.
• An adiabatic process looks very
much like an isothermal process, but it
drops off to a lower point.
◦ This means it is on a different
isotherm.
▪ Remember, isotherms are just lines
that show where the temperature
stays constant.
▪ In the adiabatic process where a gas
expands, the work done by the gas
causes the internal energy to
decrease, so the temperature must
decrease as well.
• This is why we drop to a lower
isotherm.

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Additional

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Ideal Gas Law

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