There has been and continues to be considerable discussion in the educational community
about different ways of relating the concepts of work and energy in introductory physics. 1 …

Basic laws of thermodynamics and mechanics are used to analyse an air gun. Such devices
are often employed in outdoor physics demonstrations to launch potatoes using compressed …

We discuss the representation of thermodynamic processes in diagrams. Although the idea
that it is impossible to represent non-quasistatic processes is correct and consensual, it is …

It is well known that topics in physics which rely heavily on mathematics can present
difficulties for graduate students; for example, problems involving the application of the …

This work explores the concept of dissipative work and shows that such a kind of work is an
invariant non-negative quantity. This feature is then used to get a new insight into adiabatic …

This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the concepts of a reversible
process and entropy. For this purpose, an adiabatic irreversible expansion or compression …

We analyse two irreversible adiabatic processes occurring in two thermodynamical devices:
the fire piston and the'fog bottle'. In the first, an abrupt adiabatic compression of air inside a …

The goal of this paper is to perform a general thermodynamic study of Marangoni-driven
engines in which chemical energy is directly transformed into mechanical motion. Given that …

Using macroscopic thermodynamics, the general law for adiabatic processes carried out by
an ideal gas was studied. It was shown that the process reversibility is characterized by the …

This article explores the motion of a frictionless piston within a cylindrical container that
contains an ideal gas maintained under an isothermal condition. During expansion and …