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Although a cylinder is technically not a prism, it shares many of the properties of a prism. Like
prisms, the volume is found by multiplying the area of one end of the cylinder (base) by its
height.
Since the end (base) of a cylinder is a circle, the area of that circle is given by the formula :
Volume of a sphere
Definition: The number of cubic units that will exactly fill a
sphere .
Try this Drag the orange dot to adjust the radius of the
sphere and note how the volume changes.
Volume of a pyramid
Definition: The number of cubic units that will exactly fill a
pyramid.
Try this Drag the orange dots to adjust the base size and height
of the pyramid and note how the volume changes.
The volume enclosed by a pyramid is one third of the base area times the
perpendicular height. As a formula:
the base of the pyramid and h is its height. The height must be measured
as the vertical distance from the apex down to the base.
Volume of a cone
Definition: The number of cubic units that will exactly fill a cone .
Try this Drag the orange dots to adjust the radius and height of the cone and note how the volume
changes.
of the cone and h is its height. In the figure above, drag the orange dots to change the radius and height of the cone
and note how the formula is used to calculate the volume .
Relation to a cylinder
where a is the area of one triangular end face, and h is the height.
There are various ways to find the area of the triangle, use whichever method work with what you are given. In the
above animation, the three sides are given, so here you would use Heron's Formula. But any method will do - below
is a list of methods:
Use this
All 3 sides
Heron's Formula
Side-angle-side method
Prism Formula
An prism is a polyhedron with 2 polygonal bases parallel to each other. The two polygonal bases are
joined by lateral faces. The number of lateral faces are equal to the number of sides in the base. The
lateral faces in a prism are perpendicular to the polygonal bases. Mostly the lateral faces are
rectangle. In some cases the faces may be parallelogram.
The total surface area of any polyhedron, is sum of the surface areas of each face.
In the case of a right pyramid, the side faces are all the same, so we can simply find the area of one and multiply by
the number of faces. Once we add the area of the base, we have the total surface area.
The base
In the figure above, the base is a square. So to find its area we multiply the side length by itself. The base however
can be any polygon. To find the area of a polygon see Area of a regular polygon.
In the figure above, click on 'reset'. The base side length is 10, so since the base is a square in this example, the base
area is 102 or 100.
The sides
The sides of a pyramid are triangles. There are various ways to find the area of triangles (see Area of triangles.) We
find the area of one face, then multiply by the number of faces.
In the figure above press 'reset'. We see from the front face that the base of the triangle is 10. We are also given the
height* of the triangle - 11. Recall that the area of a triangle is half the base times height, so each face has an area
of 55. (half of 11 times 10). The total for the four faces is 220. (4 times 55).
*This is also called the "slant height" of the pyramid - to distinguish it from the perpendicular height.
Total Area
So the total surface area of the above pyramid is
Area of the base 100
Area of the four faces = 4 times 55 220
TOTAL 320
As a formula
Since the base of a pyramid can be any polygon, and you may be given various different measurements, it's best to
follow the method above to find the area. But in the particular case of a right square pyramid with the base side and
slant height given, the area is given by the formula
is the slant height.
The surface area of a cylinder can be found by breaking it down into three parts:
In the figure above, drag the orange dot to the left as far as it will go. You can see that the
cylinder is made up of two circular disks and a rectangle that is like the label unrolled off a
soup can.
The area of each end disk can be found from the radius r of the circle.
The area of a circle is r2, so the combined area of the two disks is twice that, or2r
(See Area of a circle).
Calculator
Try this Change the height and dimensions of the triangular prism by dragging
the orange dots . Note how the surface area is calculated.
Each base is a polygon. In the figure above it is a regular pentagon, but it can be any regular or
irregular polygon. To find the area of the base polygons, see Area of a regular polygon and
Area of an irregular polygon. Since there are two bases, this is doubled and accounts for the
"2b" term in the equation above.
Lateral faces
Each lateral face (side) of a right prism is a rectangle. One side is the height of the prism, the
other the length of that side of the base .
Therefore, the front left face of the prism above is its height times width or
The total area of the faces is therefore
If we factor out the 'h' term from the
expression we get
Note that the expression in
the parentheses is the perimeter (p) of the base, hence we can write the final area
formula as
Regular prisms
If the prism is regular, the bases are regular polygons. and so the perimeter is 'ns' where s is the
side length and n is the number of sides. In this case the surface area formula simplifies to
b= area of a base
n= number of sides of a base
s= length of sides of a base
h= height of the prism
The surface area of a cylinder can be found by breaking it down into three parts:
In the figure above, drag the orange dot to the left as far as it will go. You can see that the
cylinder is made up of two circular disks and a rectangle that is like the label unrolled off a
soup can.
The area of each end disk can be found from the radius r of the circle.
The area of a circle is r2, so the combined area of the two disks is twice
that, or2r2.
(See Area of a circle).
Calculator
Recall that a cone can be broken down into two parts - the top part with slanted sides, and the
circular disc making the base. We can find the total surface area by adding these together.
The slant height is the distance along the cone surface from the top to the bottom rim. If you
are given the perpendicular height, you can find the slant height using the Pythagorean
Theorem. For more see Slant height of a cone.