This is a fundamental study of heat, work and efficiency:
The experiment is simple: gas is entrained in a cylinder; the top of the piston is exposed to atmospheric pressure and some applied force (may be up or down); the piston has some mass (weight). Initially the piston comes to rest at some position so that the internal pressure force balances the weight of the piston, the atmospheric pressure and the applied force. Then heat is added to the gas and it tends to expand; it raises the piston (doing useful work) until a new static equilibrium position is reached. This happens slowly, so all mass-inertia effects are negligible.
It is important to see that this is a constant pressure process, because the applied force, atmospheric pressure and piston weight are constant ..... therefore, for static equilibrium, the gas pressure must remain constant throughout the process. This will not be true for other processes to be studied later this semester.
The task is to calculate the final gas conditions, the useful work done by the gas and the efficiency (work out / heat in).
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