Tutorial details

Section I: Work

The tutorial begins with a brief review of mechanical work. In Questions A-E, students are guided to think about the sign of the work done by a movable piston on a gas contained in a cylinder. They consider whether the answer depends on the motion of the piston.

Section II: Work & thermal energy

Students are presented with the relationship between the work done on a thermally insulated ideal gas system and the change in thermal energy of that system. In Question A they apply that relationship to an adiabatic compression.

Question B involves the isochoric heating of an ideal gas. Students consider how different quantities change during the process, then sketch a $pV$ diagram.

Section III: Heat, work, and thermal energy

Students now consider the first law of thermodynamics and recognize that the previous processes were special cases where one term was zero. They then apply the first law to an isothermal process.

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Prerequisite tutorials

The Ideal gas law tutorial is a prerequisite to First law of thermodynamics.

Other prerequisites

The tutorial assumes that the students have been introduced to the ideal gas law and the first law of thermodynamics.

Equipment

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• tutorial instructor slides
• tutorial student slides or worksheet

Discussion