What happens to the internal energy of an ideal gas during an isochoric process?
Practice Questions
Q1
What happens to the internal energy of an ideal gas during an isochoric process?
It increases
It decreases
It remains constant
It can either increase or decrease
Questions & Step-by-Step Solutions
What happens to the internal energy of an ideal gas during an isochoric process?
Step 1: Understand what an isochoric process is. It is a process where the volume of the gas does not change.
Step 2: Know that internal energy is the total energy contained within the gas, which depends on temperature.
Step 3: Realize that when heat is added to the gas during an isochoric process, the gas cannot expand because the volume is constant.
Step 4: Since the gas cannot do work on its surroundings (because the volume is constant), all the heat added goes into increasing the internal energy.
Step 5: Conclude that in an isochoric process, the internal energy of the gas increases when heat is added.
