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Ch 18: A Macroscopic Description of Matter
Chapter 18, Problem 18

The 50 kg circular piston shown in FIGURE P18.57 floats on 0.12 mol of compressed air. b. How far does the piston move if the temperature is increased by 100°C?

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Key Concepts

Here are the essential concepts you must grasp in order to answer the question correctly.

Ideal Gas Law

The Ideal Gas Law relates the pressure, volume, temperature, and number of moles of a gas through the equation PV = nRT. This law is essential for understanding how changes in temperature affect the behavior of gases, particularly in a closed system like the one involving the piston and compressed air.
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Ideal Gases and the Ideal Gas Law

Thermal Expansion

Thermal expansion refers to the increase in volume of a substance as its temperature rises. In the context of the piston, as the temperature of the compressed air increases, the air expands, which can cause the piston to move. Understanding this concept is crucial for predicting the piston’s displacement due to temperature changes.
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Pressure-Volume Relationship

The pressure-volume relationship, often described by Boyle's Law, states that for a given amount of gas at constant temperature, the pressure and volume are inversely related. In this scenario, as the temperature increases and the gas expands, the pressure exerted by the gas on the piston will change, influencing how far the piston moves.
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Related Practice
Textbook Question
The interior of a Boeing 737-800 can be modeled as a 32-m-long, 3.7-m-diameter cylinder. The air inside, at cruising altitude, is 20°C at a pressure of 82 kPa. What volume of outside air, at −40°C and a pressure of 23 kPa, must be drawn in, heated, and compressed to fill the plane?
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Textbook Question
Common outdoor thermometers are filled with red-colored ethyl alcohol. One thermometer has a 0.40-mm-diameter capillary tube attached to a 9.0-mm-diameter spherical bulb. On a 0°C morning, the column of alcohol stands 30 mm above the bulb. What is the temperature in °C when the column of alcohol stands 130 mm above the bulb? The expansion of the glass is much less than that of the alcohol and can be ignored.
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Textbook Question
The 50 kg circular piston shown in FIGURE P18.57 floats on 0.12 mol of compressed air. a. What is the piston height h if the temperature is 30°C?
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Textbook Question
The cylinder in FIGURE CP18.73 has a moveable piston attached to a spring. The cylinder's cross-section area is 10 cm^2, it contains 0.0040 mol of gas, and the spring constant is 1500 N/m. At 20°C the spring is neither compressed nor stretched. How far is the spring compressed if the gas temperature is raised to 100°C?
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Textbook Question
The closed cylinder of FIGURE CP18.74 has a tight-fitting but frictionless piston of mass M. The piston is in equilibrium when the left chamber has pressure p₀ and length L₀ while the spring on the right is compressed by ΔL. b. Suppose the piston is moved a small distance x to the right. Find an expression for the net force (Fₓ)net on the piston. Assume all motions are slow enough for the gas to remain at the same temperature as its surroundings.
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Textbook Question
On average, each person in the industrialized world is responsible for the emission of 10,000 kg of carbon dioxide (CO₂) every year. This includes CO₂ that you generate directly, by burning fossil fuels to operate your car or your furnace, as well as CO₂ generated on your behalf by electric generating stations and manufacturing plants. CO₂ is a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. If you were to store your yearly CO₂ emissions in a cube at STP, how long would each edge of the cube be?
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