text: In thermodynamics, the quantity of work done by a closed system on its surroundings is defined by factors strictly confined to the interface of the surroundings with the system and to the surroundings of the system, for example, an extended gravitational field in which the system sits, that is to say, to things external to the system.
  A main concern of thermodynamics is the properties of materials. Thermodynamic work is defined for the purposes of thermodynamic calculations about bodies of material, known as thermodynamic systems. Consequently, thermodynamic work is defined in terms of quantities that describe the states of materials, which appear as the usual thermodynamic state variables, such as volume, pressure, temperature, chemical composition, and electric polarization. For example, to measure the pressure inside a system from outside it, the observer needs the system to have a wall that can move by a measurable amount in response to pressure differences between the interior of the system and the surroundings. In this sense, part of the definition of a thermodynamic system is the nature of the walls that confine it.
  Several kinds of thermodynamic work are especially important. One simple example is pressure–volume work. The pressure of concern is that exerted by the surroundings on the surface of the system, and the volume of interest is the negative of the increment of volume gained by the system from the surroundings. It is usually arranged that the pressure exerted by the surroundings on the surface of the system is well defined and equal to the pressure exerted by the system on the surroundings. This arrangement for transfer of energy as work can be varied in a particular way that depends on the strictly mechanical nature of pressure–volume work. The variation consists in letting the coupling between the system and surroundings be through a rigid rod that links pistons of different areas for the system and surroundings. Then for a given amount of work transferred, the exchange of volumes involves different pressures, inversely with the piston areas, for mechanical equilibrium. This cannot be done for the transfer of energy as heat because of its non-mechanical nature.
  Another important kind of work is isochoric work, i.e., work that involves no eventual overall change of volume of the system between the initial and the final states of the process. Examples are friction on the surface of the system as in Rumfords experiment; shaft work such as in Joules experiments; stirring of the system by a magnetic paddle inside it, driven by a moving magnetic field from the surroundings; and vibrational action on the system that leaves its eventual volume unchanged, but involves friction within the system. Isochoric mechanical work for a body in its own state of internal thermodynamic equilibrium is done only by the surroundings on the body, not by the body on the surroundings, so that the sign of isochoric mechanical work with the physics sign convention is always negative.
  When work, for example pressure–volume work, is done on its surroundings by a closed system that cannot pass heat in or out because it is confined by an adiabatic wall, the work is said to be adiabatic for the system as well as for the surroundings. When mechanical work is done on such an adiabatically enclosed system by the surroundings, it can happen that friction in the surroundings is negligible, for example in the Joule experiment with the falling weight driving paddles that stir the system. Such work is adiabatic for the surroundings, even though it is associated with friction within the system. Such work may or may not be isochoric for the system, depending on the system and its confining walls. If it happens to be isochoric for the system (and does not eventually change other system state variables such as magnetization), it appears as a heat transfer to the system, and does not appear to be adiabatic for the system.