ABSTRACT
At the end of this chapter, you should be able to:
• state the SI unit of volume • calculate the volumes and surface areas of cuboids, cylinders, prisms, pyramids, cones and spheres • calculate volumes and surface areas of frusta of pyramids and cones • appreciate that volumes of similar bodies are proportional to the cubes of the corresponding linear dimensions
The volume of any solid is a measure of the space occupied by the solid. Volume is measured in cubic units such as mm3, cm3 and m3. This chapter deals with finding volumes of common solids; in engineering it is often important to be able to calculate volumeor capacity to estimate, say, the amount of liquid, such as water, oil or petrol, in different shaped containers. A prism is a solid with a constant cross-section and with two ends parallel. The shape of the end is used to describe the prism. For example, there are rectangular prisms (called cuboids), triangular prisms and circular prisms (called cylinders).
