A truck is to cross the Sahara desert. The journey begins just before dawn when the temperature is 3 °C. The volume of air held in each tyre is 1.50 m³ and the pressure in the tyres is 3.42 × 10⁵ Pa.
a. Explain how the air molecules in the tyre exert a pressure on the tyre walls.
b. Calculate the number of moles of air in the tyre.
c. By midday the temperature has risen to 42 °C.
i. Calculate the pressure in the tyre at this new temperature. You may assume that no air escapes and the volume of the tyre is unchanged.
ii. Calculate the increase in the average translational kinetic energy of an air molecule due to this temperature rise.