OBJECTIVE

 To study the response of the pressurized vessel following a brief depressurization.

 To determine the relationship between the pressure and the temperature of the gas.
 To draw the graph of response of pressurized vessel to show the relationship between
temperature and pressure of gas.

INTRODUCTION

The Perfect Gas Expansion Apparatus is a self-sufficient bench top unit designed to
enable students to familiarize with some fundamental thermodynamic processes.
Comprehensive understanding of First Law of Thermodynamics, Second Law of
Thermodynamics and the P-V-T relationship is fundamentally important in the applications
of thermodynamics in the industry. The apparatus comes with one pressure vessel and one
vacuum vessel and both are made of glass tubes. The vessels are linked to one another with a
set of piping and valves. A large diameter pipe provides gradual or instant change.

Air pump is included to enable us to pressurize or evacuate air inside the large vessels
provided the valves configures appropriately during the experiment. The pressure and
temperature sensors are used to monitor and manipulate the pressure and temperature inside
the vessels and the digital indicator will display the pressure and temperature on the control
panel. This experiment dealt a lot with the properties of an ideal gas and its relationship with
the various environmental factors. An ideal gas is said to be a gas which obeys the P-V-T
relationship. A PVT relationship is one of the forms of the equations of state, which relates
the pressure, molar volume V and the temperature T of physically homogeneous media in
thermodynamic equilibrium.

Other than that, ideal gas is also a gas that exhibits simple linear relationships among
volume, pressure, temperature and amount. Gas particles in a box collide with its walls and
transfer momentum to them during each collision. The gas pressure is equal to the
momentum delivered to a unit area of a wall, during a unit time. However, ideal gas particles
do not collide with each other but only with the walls. A single particle moves arbitrarily
along some direction until it strikes a wall. It then bounces back, changes direction and speed

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and moves towards another wall. The gas expansion equations are derived directly from the
law of conservation of linear momentum and the law of conservation of energy.

As for this experiment, brief depressurization has been done. Depressurization is the
removal of the pressure of a gas inside a container or enclosed space, as in an aircraft cabin.
In this experiment, velocity and kinetic energy of the gas are directly proportional with the
pressure. If the pressure increases, automatically the velocity and kinetic of the gas increases
so when the gas flows out dramatically, the container will be at low pressure as high pressure
tends to move to low pressure but will slowly increase its pressure back due to molecules of
gases.

MATERIAL AND APPARATUS

Pressurized chamber with valves, gas compressor and hose (The Perfect Gas Expansion
Apparatus).

Figure 1: The Perfect Gas Expansion Apparatus

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METHODOLOGY

1. All valves were fully closed.

2. The hose was connected from the compressive pump to pressurized vessel.
3. The compressive pump was switched on and the pressure inside vessel is increase to
160kPa.
4. Then the pump is switched off and the hose was removed.
5. The pressure reading inside the vessel is determined until it stabilizes.
6. The pressure reading, PT1 was recorded.
7. The valve 01 was fully opened and closed after 3 seconds.
8. The pressure reading, PT1 was recorded until it become stable.
9. The pressure reading is displayed on the graph and being discussed.

RESULTS AND CALCULATION

Table 1: Pressure and Temperature in every 2s after valve being open
until pressure constant after valve being closed.

Time (s) Pressure (kPa) Temperature (◦C)

0 160.0 27.4

2 132.0 27.0

4 132.5 26.7

6 132.9 26.3

8 133.2 26.0

10 133.6 25.7

12 133.9 25.4

14 134.1 25.2

16 134.2 25.1

18 134.5 24.9

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 180
160
140

Pressure (kPa)
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
24.5 25 25.5 26 26.5 27 27.5 28
Temperature (◦C)

Figure 2: Graph of temperature vs pressure

180
160
140
Pressure (kPa)

120
100
80
60
40
20
0
0 5 10 15 20
Time (s)

Figure 3: Graph of time vs pressure

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DISCUSSION

This brief depressurization experiment shows the relationship between the pressure and
temperature of gas. In this experiment, the pressure inside vessel is increased to 160kPa and
then the temperature and pressure readings were taken accordingly with a time interval of
every 2 seconds after the pump is switched off and the hose was removed right until the
pressure was finally stabilized. The data was recorded and two graphs were drawn according
to the data collected.

From the data and the graph obtained, it can be clearly concluded that the pressure
decreases accordingly with the temperature. Thus, the pressure is directly proportional to the
temperature of the gas. The molecule in the vessel is affected when the amount of gas molecule
is decreasing so, the gas will have more space in the vessel thus lowering the frequency of the
collision. The increasing of pressure in vessel will cause the expansion to occur in vessel. The
expansion will decrease if the gas is allowed to flow out from the system.

Also from the experiment, the pressure dramatically decreases when the valve V01
opened but slowly increase back because the molecules of the gas in the chamber start to
move at a constant speed and slowly occupied back the space in the chamber like how
physical state of gases behave. Although the pressure started to increase back, the
temperature kept decreasing dramatically when the pressure is at a constant rate because the
molecules in the chamber starts to move at constant speed since temperature is depend on the
kinetic energy of the gas, when kinetic energy increase, temperature increases.

The graph in Figure 3 shows that that a drop point exists when the valve V01 was
released and slowly increase back because the molecules start moving at constant. Thus, it
resulted the temperature decreases from the beginning of the experiment to the end of the
experiment.

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CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the purpose of this experiment is to understand the relationship between

temperature and pressure in a pressurized vessel following a brief depressurization. It is
understood that with the increment of time, the pressure drops, simultaneously decreasing the
temperature. These relationships are demonstrated using graphs in Figure 2 and Figure 3. As
pressure drop also decreases the temperature, it is proven that temperature and pressure are
directly proportional in this experiment. Hence, all objectives of this experiment have been
successfully achieved.

LIMITATION

The experiments must be done under the ideal gas properties measurement and obeying
the P-V-T relationship. Before the experiment begun, the general start-up method had to be
performed repeatedly in order to minimize side effects which could in turn also affect the
results. The place where the experiment is conducted must be at stable and no vibration. The
apparatus must be handled carefully to avoid any accidents in the lab such as explosion due to
excessive pressure within the chambers. They must all be adjusted and connected to the right
ports. The valves had to be watched and opened carefully in accordance to the procedures or
manuals given to avoid any mistakes. Lastly always keep eyes on the sensor while
monitoring the board because the temperature or pressure could increase or decrease very
fast.

REFERNCES

Cochrane. (2007). Chemistry: Understanding of Chemical Experiments. Blackwell

Publishing: Malden, MA.

Murphy, K. (2012). A Labratory Manual for General Chemistry. (5th ed.) Amherst, New
York: Daemen College.

Tan,Y.T., Ashy Kumren. (2011). Chemistry for Matriculation. Selangor, Malaysia: Oxford
Fajar.

Veres, S. M. (1990). Chemistry for Beginners. New York: Gordon and Breach Science
Publishers.