Work

  • Work is energy related to a force acting over a distance.  
  • There are many different forms of work, but in chemical engineering we are interested in only one of them - Pressure volume work (or PV work) which is related to compression or expansion of materials.
  • Pressure volume work is important when a system is changing volume.  This is because in order to change its volume it will have to push against the force of the pressure that is exerted on the system
  • Work is done whenever a force acts through a distance.
  • If the force is constant, then 
  • If the force is a variable, the equation for work is expressed in terms of differentials 
  • The above equation must be integrated if the work for a finite process is required