Investigation of Adiabatic Gas Laws

ExperimentbyTomField,RowanFenion,MichalNowak ReportbyTomField

Adiabatic gas laws

Theadiabaticgaslawsdescribetheprocessesthatareundergoneinagaswhenitexpandsor contracts,withoutheattransfertoorfromtheenvironment. Alsoknownastheidealgaslaws(becausewhiletheyrarelyoccurinreality,theywoulddosoin atheoreticalidealgas),theyaredescribedbytheequationP1V1Y=P2V2Y,wherePstandsfor Pressure,Vforvolume,andYfortheadiabaticexponent.TheAdiabaticexponentistheratioof specificheatcapacitiesforconstantpressureandconstantvolume.Thismeansthatthe pressureofagastimesitsvolumewillalwaysremainconstantifnoheattransfertakesplace. Thereasonforthisisbasedonthemolecularstructureofanidealgas.Whenthevolumeofa gasdecreases,itspressureincreasesbecausethesamenumberofgasmoleculesareina smallerspace,andthuscollidemorefrequentlywitheachotherandwiththewallsofthe container.Thiscausestheforceoutwardonthewallsofthecontainertoincrease,which,in accordancewithnewtonssecondlaw,causestheinwardforceonthegastoincrease simultaneously.Whenthevolumedecreases,themoleculeshavemoreroomtomove, increasingthetimebetweencollisionsanddecreasingtheirforce,thuscausinglessoutward forceonthecontainer,decreasingtheinwardpressure. AnalternativewaytousetheequationisT1V1Y1=T2V2Y1,whereTstandsfortemperature.When thetemperatureisfreetochange,thetemperaturetimesthevolumeremainsconstant.

Our Experiment
Ourexperimentwasdesignedtoinvestigatethegaslawsbyrapidlydecreasingthevolumeofa sampleofgas,andmeasuringhowthetemperature,pressureandvolumeofthesample changed.Firstlyweattemptedtoascertainpressureandtemperaturefrominitialpressureand temperaturebymeasuringthechangeofvolumewithasampleY,andthenweattemptedto measureGammafromfullsetsofpressure,temperature,andvolume.

Apparatus

Ourapparatus,above,showsanarmonahingeattachedtoaplungerallowingustoquickly compressasampleofgas.Thegasweusedwasasampleofroomtemperatureair.Electronic sensorsmeasurethepressure,volumeandtemperatureofthegas,andtransmittheinformation toacomputer.

Method
Totakeareading,wesetthecomputertoreadthepressure,temperature,andvolume,andthen rapidlydepressedtheplunger,sharplycompressingtheair. Forthefirstexperimentwetookthreereadingsforeachofpressure,temperature,andvolume beforecompressingthegas,andforvolumeimmediatelyafter.Wethenfoundtheaverageof theseandappliedthemtotheequationsseenabove.Foroursecondexperiment,wetook readingsofpressure,volumeandtemperatureovertime,andthenplottedthemtogetheras seenbelowtoprovetheequationsgivenaboveandfindavalueforY.

Data
Firstexperiment Volume(Cm3) 1sttest 2ndtest 3rdtest Average 182 182 183 182.33 Pressure(kPa) 100 99 100 99.7 Temperature(K) Volume(After) (Cm3) 335 335 335 335 124 124 124 124

Forthefirstexperiment,weused1.4asthevaluefortheAdiabaticExponentY,becausethisis thevalueforairatroomtemperature. Secondexperiment Time(S) 0.45 0.46 0.47 0.48 0.49 0.50 0.51 0.52 0.53 0.54 0.55 0.56 0.57 0.58 0.59 0.60 0.61 0.62 0.63 0.64 Volume(Cm3) 182.55 182.39 181.91 180.64 178.49 175.47 171.01 165.21 158.52 151.12 143.17 135.45 128.21 123.99 124.15 124.15 124.15 124.15 124.15 124.15 Pressure(kPa) 100.56 101.32 101.32 102.30 103.76 107.18 110.84 115.48 121.83 130.86 139.89 149.90 161.13 166.75 166.26 165.77 166.26 165.28 165.04 164.55 Temperature(K) 335.67 335.76 335.76 336.03 336.40 337.05 338.25 339.72 342.03 344.70 347.74 351.43 355.49 359.36 361.85 363.51 364.52 365.07 365.53 365.72

Forthesecondexperiment,thetimesstartat0.45becausetherewasa0.45seconddelay betweenbeginningthedatacollectionanddepressingtheplungertocompressthegas.Blame forthiswasneverfullyapportioned.

Results
FirstExperiment Thedatahasahighreliability,althoughweshouldhaverecordedtohigherprecision.Usingthe averages,wecanusethegivenequations(T1V1Y1=T2V2Y1)(P1V1Y=P2V2Y)andtheAdiabatic Exponentialvalueof1.4tofindthefollowingequations.

335x182.330.4=Tx1240.4 99.7x182.331.4=Px1241.4
Thuswecanevaluatethetemperatureafterthecompressionas390.86Kelvin,andthepressure aftercompressionas171.04kPa.Thesevaluesarepossiblywrong,becausethevalueforthe AdiabaticExponentusedpresumedairtemperaturesatapproximately300kelvin,whilethe precompressiontemperaturesherearehigher. SecondExperiment Thedatacanbegraphedtodemonstratehowthefactorschangeovertime.

Thesegraphsshowthatasvolumedecreases,pressureandtemperatureincrease

concurrently,asexplainedintheequations. Theadiabaticexponentcanbecalculatedasthegradientofln(P)vsln(V),graphedbelow.

Thegradientofthisgraph,andthevalueofY,is1.29.

Conclusion
ThevalueoftheAdiabaticExponentourexperimenthasfoundissimilartothevalueforthe exponentweweregiven,andIamoverallsatisfiedwiththeresult.Ourexperimentcouldhave beenimprovedbyrepeatingit,ortakingourvalueswithgreaterprecision.Iwouldhavepreferred tohaverepeatedtheexperiment,howevertimedidnotallowforthis.