Equipment Set Up

The equipment used in this experiment is TH5 Expansion Processes of Perfect Gas
apparatus designed by Armfield. It consists two rigid vessels, which can operate
under pressure or vacuum. In this task the bigger part has been used. This part has
connections to an air pump, which is for controlling internal pressure, as well as
electrical console for determining the pressure and temperature. Experimental
equipment has several valves for controlling air flow. All parts are shown in the
figure below.

Figure 1. TH5 apparatus (discoverarmfiled.com)

Procedure
The V1 valve is used for controlling opening of the vessel to the atmosphere, V4
valve is connected to the air pump, which initiate an air flow, thus increasing the
pressure in a vessel. First V1 was closed and air pump has been activated with open
V4. Air was kept flowing until the pressure in a vessel reached 30kPa. Afterwards the
pressure should stabilize before taking measurements. The slight drop has been
observed which is due to temperature change of the air in vessel. Starting pressure,
ps, has been set.
Next step is to open valve V1 and close it very rapidly with time interval, to allow
small amount of air to be flowed out of vessel. In this part there have been quick
adiabatic reversible expansion. The minimum value of pressure, observed from the
console, is recorded as pi.
Afterwards the pause should be taken to allow the pressure in a vessel to be
stabilized and to return to ambient temperature. This process is isochoric, which

there is no volume change. After the thermal equilibrium the final pressure is
recorded as pf.
These same processes have been repeated for various initial pressures in the
vessel. These data have been used to calculate adiabatic index of air.