Thermodynamic Processes

A piston of mass is hung from a massless spring whose restoring force law goes as , where k is the spring constant of appropriate dimension. The piston separates the vertical chamber into two parts, where the bottom part is filled with ' ' moles of an ideal gas. An external work is done on the gas isothermally (at a constant temperature T) with the help of a heating filament (with negligible volume) mounted in lower part of the chamber, so that the piston goes up from a height to , the total energy delivered by the filament is:(Assume spring to be in its natural length before heating)
Show answer and solution
Answer: (b)
- Isothermal gas: , and gas work (area constant).
- Piston rises by : gain in PE .
- Spring energy for : , written in the official answer as .
- Adding the three terms gives option (b).