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Solid of Revolution - Finding Volume by Rotation

Finding the volume of a solid revolution is a method of calculating the volume of a 3D object formed by
a rotated area of a 2D space. Finding the volume is much like nding the area, but with an added
component of rotating the area around a line of symmetry - usually the x or y axis.

(1) Recall nding the area under a curve. Find the area of the denite integral

Integrate across [0,3]:

Now, let's rotate this area 360 degrees around the x axis. We will have a 3D solid that looks like this:
To nd this volume, we could take vertical slices of the solid (each dx wide and f(x) tall) and add them
up.

This is quite tedious, but thankfully we have calculus! Since the integrated area is being rotated around
the axis under the curve, we can use disk integration to nd the volume. Since the area is rotated full
circle, we can use the formula for area of a cylinder to nd our volume.

Volume of a cylinder

We can merge the formula for volume of a cylinder and our denite integral to nd the volume of our
solid. The radius for our cylinder would be the function f(x) and the height of our cylinder would be the
distance of each disk: dx

The volume of each slice would be

Adding the volumes of the disks with innitely small dx would give us the formula

Using our function, we would get this integrand for the volume

Evaluating the integral, we get

We obtained 4 units3 as our volume. Since our function is linear and the radius is changing at a
constant rate, it is easy to check this by plugging in values to the formula for volume of a cone.
The answers are the same. Since our function was linear and shaped like a cone when rotated around
the x axis, it was okay to use the volume formula for a cone. Many of the volumes we will be working
with are not shaped like cone, so we cannot simply substitute values in the formula. While algebra can
take care of the nice straight lines, calculus takes care of the not-so-nice curves.

Volume by Rotation Examples

(2) Now lets try rotating the same area around the y axis.
The rst rotated solid was integrated in terms x to nd the area and rotated around the x axis.
Similarly, this solid is also integrated in terms of x for the area, but it is now rotated around the y axis.
Notice that this solid can be obtained by subtracting a cone with radius 3 at y = 2 from the cylinder
formed from radius 3 and a height of 2.

Volume of the Cylinder - Volume of the Cone

 = area revolved around the y axis.

There are three ways to nd this volume. We can do this by (a) using volume formulas for the cone and
cylinder, (b) integrating two dierent solids and taking the dierence, or (c) using shell integration
(rotating an area around a dierent axis than the axis the area touches). Let's try all three methods.

(a) Using the volume formulas, we would have

The radius for the cylinder and the cone would be 3 and the height would be 2.

The volume is 12 units3. Let's check it with integration.

(b) When integrating, we nd the area from the curve to an axis. Since we are revolving around the y
axis, we need to integrate with respect to y. For the Cylinder, our area before it is rotated would look
like this:

The function of y is f(y) = 3 from [0,2]. Now we can set up our integral.
Now on to the cone. Since it is rotated around the y axis, we need to integrate the original function
with respect to y. All we have to do is solve our original function for x instead of y, making it a function
of y. The function of y would look like this:

The function of y is f(y) = (32)y from [0,2]. Let's set up our integral.

Now we subtract the volume of the cone from the volume of the cylinder. We get the same answer.
Finally, let's carry out shell integration.

(c) Notice in disk integration the area was rotated around the same axis that the area was integrated
on. In other words, the axis the area touched was the axis of rotation. In shell integration, it is the
opposite. Notice that the area is touching the x axis and the solid is rotating around the y axis.

The formula for shell integration is dened as:

where x is the distance to the y axis, or the radius, and f(x) is now the height of the shell.
Simply substituting f(x) will give us

It seems like simply using the volume formulas was the best method, but let's do some dierent
examples where that isn't the case.

(3) Find the volume of the following function rotated around the x axis from [0,2]

The rotated area would look like this:

Unless you know the formula for nding the volume of a vase, we must use integration to nd this
volume. We cannot use the formula for any simple three dimensional geometric gures like the rst
two examples. Revolving this solid about the x axis, we would do the same as example (1) and set up
an integral using the formula for the volume of a cylinder. The radius of the cylinder is the curve, so we
would plug f(x) in for the radius, and then the height would be dx, which is from 0 to 2.

Volume of a cylinder

The total volume of the solid is 92 units3.

What if we wanted to nd the volume of the area rotated around the x axis of the same function, but
with some open space in the middle? This type of gure is called a washer, or a donut. They are like
discs because they are circular, but there is space in the middle.

Consider the same function with f(x) = 1.

When rotated, it will look similar to our previous rotation but with a cylinder removed in the middle.

To nd the volume, we simply take the dierence of our original area and the area of the space in the
center.
(4) It could also be benecial to talk about a solid that is not rotated a full 360 degrees. Think about a
portion of a circle that has been shaded.

This circle has been shaded 240 degrees out of 360. How do we nd the area? We simply take a
fraction of the total area, in this case, 240360, or two thirds.

This is the case with volume. If we have a portion of the area rotated, we nd out the volume of the
solid out of the total volume if it were rotated 360 degrees.
This solid is also rotated 240 degrees around the x axis. What would the volume be?

This is the volume for the rotated portion of the graph on the interval [a,b].

In the previous examples, we rotated areas about the x or y axis. What if we rotated them about an
arbitrary axis?

When rotating around an axis g(x), we must take into account the change of radius. The formulas for
disk and shell integration will be as follows:

<< Prev (Finding the Area) Next (Fundamental Theorem of Calculus) >>

Calculus Volume Integration Mark favorite

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