Concepts of Thermodynamics

Prof. Suman Chakraborty

Department of Mechanical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

Lecture – 10
Heat and Work

Today, we will start discussing about two very interesting and important concepts in
classical thermodynamics, Heat and Work.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:30)

The name thermodynamics traditionally evolved from two important Greek words therm
and dynamic. So, one is equivalent to heat and other is equivalent to power. So,
thermodynamics is often perceived as a branch of science or engineering that deals with
heat and work and their inter conversion. Of course, modern thermodynamics is not just
like that, even there could be information flowing in a system and you can have transport
associated with transfer of information in an information technology system.

So, thermodynamics in a broad sense is not just heat or work, but the fundamental
premises of thermodynamics have all been postulated on the basis of heat and work
which has been extended to other systems where the traditional heat transfer or work
done may not be taking place, but you may also have equivalent effects such as the
transfer of heat and work.
So, we will start with the definition of work. Work is done on a system or work is done
by a system if the sole effect on the surroundings is that of raising of a weight.

So, this is a very tricky statement. The statements in thermodynamics, the definitions are
pretty generic, sometimes very philosophical. So, it is very important to interpret
between lines. So, work is done if the sole effect on the surrounding. There is a system
and there is a surrounding, the system is doing some work if the sole effect could be that
of raising of a weight, very important thing is – “could be that” , not that it is always that,
could be that of raising of a weight means equivalent work of raising of a weight could
also be work. It is not that raising of a weight is just doing work.

So, this is a template or prototype of doing work. So, you have a system and say it is
connected by a rod in which you tie up a string which, you rotate this rod with a pulley
and then what is happening is as you make this shaft rotate this string is unwound and
this goes up. So, once this is happening you can say that there is a raising of a weight.
So, what is so typical about raising of a weight? What is so typical about raising of a
weight is that there is a gravity which is pulling the weight down and you are
overcoming that resistance to make a displacement.

So, if there is a displacement against a resistance then thermodynamic work is done. So,
it is very much different from mechanical work. Mechanical work, even if there is no
resistance and if there is a force and there is a displacement the dot product of force and
displacement is work. In thermodynamic work, it is the resistance force which is
important. So, the work is calculated as resistance force times the displacement not the
applied force times the displacement because if there is no resistance, there is no
thermodynamic work done.

So, in a little bit of light note, I can say that the participants in this course are going
through, I mean all of you have started going through the lectures of this and we will
have assignments, tutorials, quizzes and exams. See as a teacher I will feel great if I set
very tough questions and despite setting the tough questions you are able to answer those
questions and get good grades. I think more than a teacher as a student you will be more
satisfied because if there is a tough question and you have been able to address the tough
question and get a good grade that means you have done some work against some
resistance. So, it is something of real achievement or satisfaction.
On the other hand, if there is no resistance you just sit and enjoy the lectures with cups of
coffee without paying any attention and then whatever you do I give you the final best
grade for all the students, then even if you get the best grade you will not get that kind of
satisfaction. So in human life, philosophically we all get the joy of success because there
is a resistance to get success. If there is no resistance to get success, there is no joy in
getting success. So, similarly in thermodynamic world, there is an achievement in terms
of doing work if there is a displacement against a resistance.

So, with this little bit of note, I can give you an example in which there is a there is a
displacement of the system boundary, but there is no work done.

(Refer Slide Time: 07:55)

So, let us say that there is a chamber. The chamber is partitioned in 2 halves, on one side
there is a gas, on the other side there is vacuum. The system is the gas. Now, suddenly
what you do is you puncture the membrane and very quickly the gas fills up the entire
volume because there is vacuum, there is no resistance against the expansion of this gas.
This is called as free expansion or unrestrained expansion. Here the work is 0.

So, you can see that the system boundary gets stretched up to the entire volume of the
chamber but because there is no resistance force there is no work done. So, this
illustrates the basic principle of thermodynamic work that I have just mentioned now.
(Refer Slide Time: 09:37)

So, work done due to the displacement of a moving boundary for a simple compressible
substance undergoing a quasi equilibrium process. So, the template is like this: there is a
piston. See, piston cylinder arrangement is a very classical template by which we
illustrate various concepts in thermodynamics. Let us say there is a piston. This piston is
getting displaced and we are interested to find out what is the work done due to the
displacement of the system boundary. The system boundary gets displaced because the
piston is moving. There are certain keywords in the description of this heading and I will
go through the keywords very carefully before getting into the expression for the work
done.

The first keyword is simple compressible substance. So, what is a simple compressible
substance? In a thermodynamic system, other than the effects of change of pressure,
volume and temperature and related properties, you could also have other effects which
are important like electric effect, magnetic effect and all those things. Despite having
those factors a simple compressible substance is a substance where pressure, volume and
temperature changes or the changes of the related parameters are much more important
than the other effects like electrical effect, magnetic effect and so on.

So, what would happen if there are other affects? The work done due to electric,
magnetic this type of effects have to be also considered while finding out an expression
for the work done. So, when we are obtaining an expression for the work done, this
means that we are not considering electrical work, magnetic work these types of things.
We are only focusing on pressure, volume, temperature change this type of change, and
it is undergoing a quasi-equilibrium process.

That means, what is the model situation in which it can move in a quasi equilibrium
process? Let us say you have thin slices of very small loads on this piston. You remove
the top slice, this slice and then it will go up a little bit you remove the next slice it will
go up a little bit. In this way if you remove the loads slowly in a very small incremental
step the piston will also move slowly in very small incremental step. With this very slow
process all the intermediate states will get sufficient time to achieve thermodynamic
equilibrium. That means, when we say that this is a thermodynamic equilibrium state, we
mean everywhere the pressure, temperature and specific volume all are the same.

When it comes to a new configuration we should allow it sufficient time so that everyone
in this new configuration, it will come to a new common value of pressure, temperature
specific volume like that. If we want to give it that time, then the process has to be very
slow, that is the deviation from equilibrium is only infinitesimal, that is negligible
deviation from equilibrium. So, with this negligible deviation from equilibrium we can
say that there is balance of forces on the piston.

So, there is some pressure from this side. There is a resistance force from the other side.
What is this FRes? What is this FRes? This is mg +Wload.

Fres  m
 p g  Wload

Total weight of the load is dynamically changing because you are taking one after the
other.

pA  Fres (under equillibrium)

If it is not in equilibrium that is if it is not a quasi equilibrium process, if not in

equilibrium then

pA  Fres

Thus, there will be a net unbalanced force.

So, what is the work done due to a small displacement of the piston? We write this as
 W. This we do not write as dW. Just after sometime I will let you know that why we
do not write it as dW. When we write it as dW it means that it is an exact differential of
something, that means the work done as you go from state 1 to state 2 will just depend on
the states 1 and 2, but not by the process by which you have gone from 1 to 2, but if the
work done depends on the process, that means it is not an exact differential.

So,  is the symbol of inexact differential and the work as it’s differential is inexact
differential it is also called as path function, that means it depends on the thermodynamic
process or the thermodynamic path. How it depends we will come into this in a moment.
So,

W  Fres dx

this is consistent with the definition of work because if there is no resistance there is no
work done.

For quasi equilibrium process,

Fres = pA

So, in that case

 W  pAdx  pdv

So, this is the famous formula for work done which is pdV. I want to talk about a few
very important subtle points associated with this very simple expression work done equal
to pdV which you have perhaps all of you have learnt from school level, high school
level. First of all why this is a path function? So, depending on how pressure changes

with volume, the work done, which is  pdv , will depend.

So, it does not just matter on the fact that what is state 1 and what is state 2, but also on
the path by which you go from state 1 to state 2, that is given by p as a function of V or
V as a function of p, that function decides what will be the work done. So, this is number
1 important point. Second important point is that there is no necessity that this has to be a
closed system.
(Refer Slide Time: 20:34)

For example, if you have a hole through which you supply air and then the piston is
moving. If it is moving in a quasi equilibrium process, the work focuses only on the
system boundary displacement. So, thus whenever there is system boundary
displacement in a quasi equilibrium process the work done will be this, it does not matter
whether it is a closed system or an open system. Many people have a false impression
that this is true only for a closed system, that is not correct. It is true even for an open
system because the definition of work never requires that it has to be a closed system. It
is just the resistance force times the displacement. So, to summarize this expression is
valid for a simple compressible substance undergoing a quasi-equilibrium process.
That’s all, no more assumption is there associated with it.
(Refer Slide Time: 21:49)

So, we will consider an example how to calculate the total work done, two typical
examples. But before that I will illustrate graphically why this is called as a path
function. So, let us say one is state 1, this is state 2. So, while going from state 1 to state
2, you might have a path 1 or path A you might have another path B. The work done is

what? The work done is  pdv . So, that is the area under the curve. So, area under curve
A is different from the area under curve B, although the state points 1 and 2 remain the
same. So, that is why we say that it is path function and therefore  W and not dW.

So, example 1 will be say pV = C. This is typical to isothermal process of an ideal gas.
So,

2
v v
 
c
W12  pdv  dv  c ln( 2 )  p1v1 ln( 2 )
v v1 v1
1

Example 2: pVn. This is called as a polytropic process, that means, many times when you
plot the pressure versus volume data you can fit the pressure versus volume data with
pVn, where n  1. If n = 1, that is what we have already considered. So, do not confuse
this with an adiabatic process.
Adiabatic process is a special case of a polytropic process, but it could also be any other
process. So, any process which could be artificially fitted in the form of an equation pVn
= C, that is a polytropic process. So,

v2 n 1  v1 n 1 p2 v2  p1v1

2

 
n
W12  pdv  cv dv  c 
n  1 1 n
1

This is the work due to displacement of the system boundary.

There could be other forms of work. What are these? Shaft work. So, what is shaft work?
So, if there is a shaft that is rotating and it requires a torque T to rotate it, then

Power  T  

(Refer Slide Time: 26:43)

Flow work: What is flow work? Let us say there is a fluid which tries to enter a pipe. So,
because the pipe is already jammed with fluid, the fluid has to overcome the pressure and
maintain the flow, otherwise the flow cannot be maintained. So, if the pressure is p and
the area of cross section is A and the element of fluid we consider as dx then the total

work due to displacement of one front of the fluid by dx is pAdx .

So, this much of energy the fluid must have to maintain the flow in presence of the
pressure otherwise it cannot displace this and make the fluid move, it will be a stagnant
fluid. So,

pAdx p
  pv
 Adx 

So, pressure into specific volume is what the energy required to maintain the flow in
presence of pressure per unit mass. This is called as flow energy or flow work. So, you
have flow work. Then you also have work done due to stretching of a wire, this is due to
surface tension. If you stretch a wire you do some work because if you expand an area by
stretching a wire you do a work by virtue of putting more energy to the surface. This is
due to surface tension.

Then, electrical work: so, if you have an electrical potential E and if you are charging
with a charge dq then the work done in this case, plus or minus I will come later on
because the sign convention of work and, work we have not yet discussed, but if you
have potential or a electrical field E and if you have a charged dq the work done
associated will be proportional to E  dq.

And, then you could also have magnetic work. So, if you have ions in a paramagnetic
salt and then you apply a magnetic field to orient the ions in a certain direction, then you
do some work. This is called as magnetic work. So, the orientation of ions in a
paramagnetic salt can be reorganized by applying a magnetic field and therefore it
associates it with some work.

So, all these forms of work shaft work, flow work, stretching of a wire, electrical work,
magnetic work these are different forms of work which are beyond what is captured by
pdV. So, pdV is not all that you have to keep in mind.

So next, very briefly we will discuss about the sign convention for work because we
have work as an algebraic quantity but it should either be positive or negative.
(Refer Slide Time: 30:46)

So, our sign convention that we will follow throughout this course is that work done by
the system is positive.

So, if there is a system like this, if it does work, then what will happen? Energy will flow
from the system to the surrounding because at the expense of that energy only it will do
work. So, this we call as positive work where energy is leaving from system to
surrounding. So, again I am repeating, as per the sign convention to be followed in this
course, if energy is leaving from the system to surrounding we are calling it as positive
work. Very briefly we will now talk about heat.

So, what is heat? Heat is an energy in transient due to temperature difference. So, if you
have a system which is different from the surrounding temperature then there is a heat
transfer either from the system to the surrounding or from the surrounding to the system
which is governed by the temperature difference. So, let us take an example when the
surrounding is having a greater temperature than that of the system. So, in that case, a
heat flows from the surrounding to the system which we call as positive heat transfer. So,
positive heat transfer is energy gained by the system and positive work is energy lost by
the system.
(Refer Slide Time: 33:20)

So, heat and work what is there similarity? So, similarity between heat and work. Both
are energies in transient. So, work is also energy in transient because whenever the
system boundary is moving then only work is done. System does not possess any work, it
also does not possess any heat. If you have a bucket of water sometimes we say that it
has lot of heat, it is a wrong terminology it has a lot of internal energy maybe which we
will discuss later on as a terminology, but not heat. A system cannot possess heat. Heat
can only be transferred across a system boundary either from the surrounding to the
system or system to the surrounding, similar is work. So, both are energies in transient,
not energy possessed by a system, first thing.

Second, differentials of both are inexact differentials. So, for differential of heat we call
 q not dq because heat transfer is also depending on what is the thermodynamic path.
Thermodynamic path means how pressure changes with volume during the process. So,
these are the analogies.

The sign convention is opposite, but there is no sacrosanct thing about it. It is our way of
taking the sign convention. If somebody takes the sign convention such that work input
is like instead of energy flowing out. Energy flowing in is positive work; that also is ok.
There is nothing wrong with it, but all the subsequent equations that we develop for
example, first law of thermodynamics and so on, we have to be careful about the sign
convention. We will throughout this course follow the same sign convention. If
somebody follows a different sign convention those equations will be altered with
algebraic sign. So, that is the only sacrosanct thing about the sign convention of heat and
work.

So, to summarize today we have understood what is heat transfer, what is work done and
their similarities in terms of notional features like energies in transient and their
differentials are path dependent or inexact differentials.

Thank you very much.