The region of space enclosed by the boundaries of the open system is usually called a control volume, and it may or may not correspond to physical walls. If we choose the shape of the control volume such that all flow in or out occurs perpendicular to its surface, then the flow of mass into the system performs work as if it were a piston of fluid pushing mass into the system, and the system performs work on the flow of mass out as if it were driving a piston of fluid. There are then two types of work performed: "flow work" described above, which is performed on the fluid (this is also often called " work"), and "shaft work", which may be performed on some mechanical device.