PASCO TD-8565 Adiabatic Gas Law Apparatus - Manual (Page 4)

© 2009 Physics Enterprises 4
Experiment 1: Ideal Gas Law
Target Students
High school and introductory college physics and chemistry.
Objectives
To show that PV/T = nR for an ideal gas and determine the value of R.
Physical Principles
The well-known relationship between absolute pressure (P), volume (V), and absolute
temperature (T), of an ideal gas is:
(1.1)
where n is the number of mol in the sample and R is the ideal gas constant. For a closed
system with n fixed, placing all variables on the left-hand side of the equation yields the
constant value,
(1.2)
The number of mol, n, is related to the density of the gas (ρ), the molecular mass of the gas
molecules (M), and the volume (V), via the relation,
(1.3)
nRT PV
=
nR
T
PV =
M
V
n
ρ
=
Procedure
A. Connections
Power the Adiabatic Gas Law unit via the AC adapter. Insert the Pressure, Volume and
Temperature din connectors into channels A, B and C of the Science Workshop interface,
respectively. Open Data Studio and indicate that a voltage sensor is connected to each
channel. Adjust the Sample Rate to 1,000 Hz.