Ideal Gas Law: Crushed Can, Straw Pressure, Graphs, Balloons/Marsh mellows, and Diving Bells and Balloons

Ideal Gas Law: Throughout today's experiments we worked with the Ideal Gas Law. We did this by working with the variables within, volume, pressure, moles of gas, and temperature.

1. Crushed Can

 Here we filled a can with warm water, and placed it upside down at room temperature water. The can collapsed due to pressure difference.

2. Straw Pressure

Here we blew on water within a straw to get it to move some distance. We then worked with the equation Pressure = (force/area). Noting that the force was equal to the weight of water, and that the mass was equal to water density times gravity, we rewrote the pressure equation in terms of density, height, and gravity.

3. Ideal Gas Law quantity graphs

Here we worked with three quantities from the idea gas law: pressure, temperature, and volume. According to the equation PV = nRT, all the values should have a linear relationship, which is what we drew with the solid line on the graphs in the above picture. However, for volume vs. pressure, it was a curve, as opposed to a line. They have an inverse relation, since P ~ (1/V).

4. Balloons/Marsh mellows

 Here we placed a balloon and then marsh mellows inside a container and sucked the air out of it. We reduced the pressure, thus increasing the volume of the items. This is because the air inside them wants to expand to the rest of the space within the container, in line with the Ideal Gas Law. When we returned the container to the prior pressure, they were smaller then they were originally. This is because some of the air within the items had escaped them in the reduced pressure atmosphere

 5. Diving Bells and Balloons

 

 Above we did two seperate problems involving the idea gas law, as well as buoyant force. We used these equations to figure out the change of air height due to pressure difference, as well as the max payload mass of a balloon.