Gunpowder's burning rate increases with pressure, so it will burst containers but just burns in the open. Ignition of the powder packed behind a bullet must generate enough pressure to force it from the muzzle at high speed, but not enough to rupture the gun barrel.
The gas constant occurs in the ideal gas law, as follows: where P is the absolute pressure (SI unit pascals), V is the volume of gas (SI unit cubic metres), n is the amount of gas (SI unit moles), m is the mass (SI unit kilograms) contained in V, and T is the thermodynamic temperature (SI unit kelvins).
The Ideal Gas Law can easily be reduced to Charlesâ, Boyleâs, or Avogadroâs Law. For example, suppose that n and T are held constant. Then the product nRT is also a constant and we can give it the name, k. The Ideal Gas Law then becomes PV=k, which is just Boyleâs Law. The symbol âRâ in this equation is a constant called âthe gas constantâ and its value can be computed by measuring the temperature, volume, and pressure of a known quantity of an ideal gas and substituting these values into the Ideal Gas Law solved for R. In fact, this is the bases of the laboratory exercise for this lesson.