Irreversible adiabatic compression of an ideal gas

Physics Teacher

Volumn 41, Issue 8, 2003, Pages 450-453

  Mungan, Carl E ^a  

^a UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY   (United States)

Author keywords

44.60; 46.05B; 51.30

Indexed keywords

EID: 85006314921     PISSN: 0031921X     EISSN: 19434928     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1119/1.1625202     Document Type: Article

References (9)

1. P. Gnädig, G. Honyek, and K. Riley, 200 Puzzling Physics Problems (Cambridge University, Cambridge, 2001)
2. S.B. Cahn, G.D. Mahan, and B.E. Nadgorny, A Guide to Physics Problems, Part 2 (Plenum, New York, 1997), Prob. 4.23. In such problems, "adiabatic" means thermally insulated not isentropic.
3. F.W. Sears and G.L. Salinger, Thermodynamics, Kinetic Theory, and Statistical Thermodynamics, 3rd ed. (Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1986), p. 63
4. S. G. Canagaratna, "Critique of the treatment of work," Am. J. Phys. AJPIAS 46, 1241-1244 (Dec. 1978).
5. W. G. Hoover and B. Moran, "Pressure-volume work exercises illustrating the first and second laws," Am. J. Phys. AJPIAS 47, 851-856 (Oct. 1979).
6. As pointed out on p. 142 of R.P. Bauman, Modern Thermodynamics with Statistical Mechanics (Macmillan, New York, 1992), the speed of the piston must always be much less than that of sound in order to be reversible but much faster than the thermal conduction rate to the walls in order to be adiabatic.
7. M.W. Zemansky and R.H. Dittman, Heat and Thermodynamics, 7th ed. (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1997)
8. Sears and Salinger, op. cit., p. 71.
9. D. R. Olander, "Compression of an ideal gas as a classroom example of reversible and irreversible processes," Int. J. Eng. Educ. 16, 524-528 (2000).