Area of Plane Shapes

Learn more about Area, or try the Area Calculator.

Triangle

Area = b h
b = base h = vertical height Rectangle

Area = a2
a = length of side

Square

Parallelogram

Area = w h
w = width h = height Trapezoid (US) Trapezium (UK)

Area = b h
b = base h = vertical height Circle

Area = (a+b) h
h = vertical height

Area =

r2

Circumference = 2r r = radius Sector

Ellipse

Area =

ab

Area = r2
r = radius = angle in radians

Note: h is at right angles to b:

Example: What is the area of this rectangle?

The formula is:

Area = w h
w = width h = height We know w = 5 and h = 3, so:

Area = 5 3 = 15

Example: What is the area of this triangle?

Height = h = 12 Base = b = 20

Area = b h = 20 12 = 120

A harder example:

Example: Sam cuts grass at $1 per 10m2 How much does Sam earn cutting this area:

Let's break the area into two parts:

Area of A = a2 = 20m 20m = 400m2 Area of B = b h = 20m 14m = 140m2

So the total area is: Part B is a triangle. Viewed sideways it has a base of 20m and a height of 14m.

Part A is a square:

Area = Area of A + Area of B = 400m2 + 140m2 = 540m2 Sam earns = $1 540m2 / 10m2 = $54
Sam earns $1 per 10m2

Waterplane Area Calculation with Simpsons Rule

Naval architects will always have to deal with ship form calculations. These include the calculations of areas of waterplane, transverse sections to obtain the curve of sectional areas, the calculation of hydrostatic properties of the ship such as the displacement, the center of buoyancy, the center of floatation, the transverse metacenter above the keel and etc. In this post, I am going to explain how in Naval Architecture studies we use Simpson's rules to calculate the waterplane area and the position of its centroid of area and finally, the second moments of area for a boat.

For example, we get the ordinates (in meters) of the waterplane of a boat which is defined by a series of half breadth ordinates at 2 meters separation, as follows:

For illustration, I have drawn or sketched the waterplane using pencil on a piece of paper.

To carry out the ship or boat form calculation, I use Microsoft Excel. I entered the half bread ordinates of the boat in a table and perform the calculation as depicted on the table below:

As explained by E. C. Tupper on page 55 of Introduction to Naval Architecture, The column F(A) represents SM x y; F(M) = SM x lever x y;F(I)long = SM x lever x lever x y and F(I) trans = SM x y 3. From the summations in the table: The area of the waterplane (for both sides of the boat) = 2/3 x 2 x 67.2 = 89.599 square meters. The centroid of the area is 2 x 21/67.2 = 0.625 m forward of amidships. The longitudinal second moment of area about amidships = 2/3 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 284.4 = 1516.799 m 4 The minimum longitudinal second moment will be about the centroid of area and given by: IL = 1516.8 - 89.599 (0.625)2 = 1481.647 m4 The ship form calculations can be carried out not only by Simpson's rules but also by Trapezoidal, Tchebycheff's rules. With the use of computer spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel and Lotus 123, the calculation can be done and modified in real-time easily. by Charles Roring Watch the video of ship displacement calculation on the following posts: Ship Displacement Calculation Ships Displacement Calculation using Simpson's Rule