Find the surface area of that part of the cylinder

145 Views Asked by At

Find the surface area of that part of the cylinder given by $\mathbf{r}(u,v) = 3\cos u \mathbf{i} + 3\sin u\mathbf{j} + v\mathbf{k}$ over the region where $0\leq u \leq2\pi$ and $0\leq v \leq2$.

The answer is $12\pi$.

I am trying to solve this but I am not understanding how to do this. I am thinking about either Stoke's theorem or the Divergence theorem. In both cases, we have to take the derivative with respect to x and y and z, but it is in terms with u and v.

Also, how would you find the normal vector for Stoke's theorem? Or is it better to just use the Divergence Theorem?

1

There are 1 best solutions below

5
On BEST ANSWER

It's not clear why you would use Stoke's theorem or divergence, although sometimes people set relatively trivial exercises like this in order to give you a way to check your application of the theorem. (But in that case I'd expect there to have been more guidance on how to set up the problem; for example, "Use this vector field ... .")

The quantities $u$ and $v$ are just parameters that you can vary within the given intervals; for each possible pair of values $(u,v)$ you can plug those values into the formula $3\cos u \mathbf{i} + 3\sin u\mathbf{j} + v\mathbf{k}$ and the result will be a point on the desired surface.

Try drawing a picture of the surface. You can start by drawing just the points for which $v = 0$ (these all have the form $3\cos u \mathbf{i} + 3\sin u\mathbf{j}$, so they lie in the $x,y$ plane). Every other point is obtained by adding $v\mathbf{k}$ for some $v$ in $(0,2]$ to one of the $x,y$ points, so those points are all directly above the first set of points, that is, take your graph in the $x,y$ plane and build a wall of height $2$ on it.

It's a very simple surface (hint: you already know it's part of a cylinder) and you should be able to find its area easily using high-school geometry.