Arc Length and Surface Area Help

Introduction Arc Length and Surface Area

Just as the integral may be used to calculate planar area and spatial volume, so this tool may also be used to calculate the arc length of a curve and surface area. The basic idea is to approximate the length of a curve by the length of its piecewise linear approximation. A similar comment applies to the surface area. We begin by describing the basic rubric.

Arc Length

Suppose that f (x) is a function on the interval [ a, b ]. Let us see how to calculate the length of the curve consisting of the graph of f over this interval (Fig. 8.28). We partition the interval:

a = x ₀ ≤ x ₁ ≤ x ₂ ≤ ... ≤ x _{k −1} ≤ x _k = b.

Fig. 8.28

Look at Fig. 8.29. Corresponding to each pair of points x _{j −1}, x _j in the partition is a segment connecting two points on the curve; the segment has endpoints (x _{j −1} , f ( x _{j −1} )) and (x _j, f (x _j)). The length l _j of this segment is given by the usual planar distance formula:

l _j = ([x _j − x _{j −1} ] ² + [ f (x _j ) − f (x _{j −1})] ² )^1/2.

Fig. 8.29

We denote the quantity x _j − x _{j −1} by Δx and apply the definition of the derivative to obtain

Now we may rewrite the formula for l _j as

Summing up the lengths l _j (Fig. 8.30) gives an approximate length for the curve:

Fig. 8.30

But this last is a Riemann sum for the integral

As the mesh of the partition becomes finer, the approximating sum is ever closer to what we think of as the length of the curve, and it also converges to this integral. Thus the integral represents the length of the curve.

Examples

You Try It: Set up, but do not evaluate, the integral for the arc length of the graph of on the interval π/4 ≤ x ≤ 3π/4.

Sometimes an arc length problem is more conveniently solved if we think of the curve as being the graph of x = g (y). Here is an example.

Example

You Try It: Write the integral that represents the length of a semi-circle and evaluate it.

Find practice problems and solutions for these concepts at: Applications of the Integral Practice Test.