Adiabatic Process

What is Adiabatic Process?

A process in which the system exchanges no heat with its surroundings, whether because it's well insulated or simply happens too fast for heat to transfer. A bicycle pump warming up as you compress it is adiabatic compression in action — the work done on the gas goes entirely into raising its internal energy.

The five clues

Engineerdle #34 described Adiabatic Process with five clues, revealed one at a time from hardest to most direct. Each clue points at a different property of the concept.

1. 01A process with one specific thing forbidden from crossing its boundary.
2. 02That forbidden thing is heat, not work.
3. 03Compress a gas fast enough and it behaves almost exactly like this.
4. 04A bicycle pump gets warm to the touch because of it.
5. 05A process in which no heat is transferred into or out of the system.

More Thermodynamics concepts

• Triple PointPuzzle #52
• Isentropic ProcessPuzzle #44
• EntropyPuzzle #39
• Latent HeatPuzzle #14
• Specific Heat CapacityPuzzle #9
• First Law of ThermodynamicsPuzzle #4