Question

Imagine you've finished this academic year and gone home to enjoy your summer vacation. During one of your days of relaxation and non-academic bliss, however, you realize you need to run a few errands. After stopping at the gas station where you fill the gas tank to its capacity of 70 liters with gasoline at 20° Celcius, you park the car in the parking lot of your favorite CD store. The hot sun causes the gas temperature to rise to a toasty 137° Fahrenheit. What volume of gas runs out of the overflow tube? The volume expansion coefficient for gasoline is 950*10-6 C-1. You may ignore the thermal expansion of the tank and the small amount of gas consumed from the gas station to the CD store.

Volume = ?? in liters

HELP: Volume increases linearly with temperature.

HELP: You're looking for the change in volume. ΔV = V (initial)*β*ΔT.

Answer 1

since you are doing delta V over V it does not matter if you are using cubic meters or liters or whatever. Use liters
C = (5/9)(F-32)
C = (5/9)(137-32) = 58.3 deg C

delta T = 58.3 - 20 = 38.3

delts V / V = 950*10^-6 (38.3)
delta V = 70*950*10^-6 * 38.3
= 2.55 liters spilled on ground, like half a gallon
bad, bad :(