Calculation of the radius of a sphere in a conical funnel

45 Views Asked by At

I have a mathematical question that I need help with. I have a conical funnel with a radius of $r$ and a height of $h = r\sqrt{3}$. The funnel is filled up to a height of $\frac{7}{8}h$, and then a sphere is completely placed inside the funnel. As a result, the water in the funnel rises exactly up to the rim.

I would like to calculate the radius of the sphere in terms of the radius of the funnel.

First I thought I could just take $1/8$ of the volume and solve than for $r_\text{sphere}$ but $7/8$ is the height and the $1/8$ at the bottom has a diffrent volume from the one on top. So my next thought was to calculate the volume vor $8/8$ of the height than form $7/8$ and sub the lower from the higher. But with this I have the problem that I think that the $r$ should be smaller since we dont use the full hight and the funnel gets wider as it gets higher. None of my friends know the answer. Can someone help me?

1

There are 1 best solutions below

1
On

The 1/8 volume is a frustum

$$\begin{align} V &=\frac{\pi h\left(r^2+\left(\frac{7}{8}r\right)^2+\frac{7}{8}r\times r\right)}{3}\\ &=\frac{\pi \frac{1}{8}r^3\sqrt{3}\left(1+\left(\frac{7}{8}\right)^2+\frac{7}{8}\right)}{3}\\ &=\frac{169\pi r^3}{512\sqrt{3}} \end{align}$$

$$\begin{align}r_\text{sphere} &=\sqrt[3]{\frac{3\left(\frac{169\pi r^3}{512\sqrt{3}}\right)}{4\pi}}\\ &=r\sqrt[3]{\frac{169\sqrt{3}}{2048}}\\ &=\frac{6.5^{\frac{2}{3}}3^{\frac{1}{6}}r}{8} \end{align} $$