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In a gasoline-burning car engine, the exploding air-gas mixture makes a force on the piston, and the force tapers off as the
piston expands, allowing the gas to expand. (a) In the approximation
, where
is the position of the piston, find the work done on the piston as it travels from
to
, and show that the result only depends on the ratio
. This ratio is known as the compression ratio of the engine. (b) A better approximation, which takes into account the cooling of
the air-gas mixture as it expands, is
. Compute the
work done in this case.







Figure 4.11
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