fishinmyi

Hi,

Can anyone help me to calculate the area of a segment of a circle when it is expressed as a percentage of the height?

For example if a circle is 750mm in diameter and the segment consists of the bottom 5% of the total height (37.5mm) what would the area of this segment be?

Help for a first time user would be much appreciated.

Regards,

John.

skipjack

You are using "total height" to refer to the circle's diameter. If you are given the diameter and the percentage, you can calculate the height of the segment, and then use trigonometry to find the angle subtended by the segment. After that, finding the area is easy.

fishinmyi

Skipjack,

Thanks for that, but it's finding the angle that I'm having the issue with........ Any further advice ???

skipjack

Can you follow this article?

fishinmyi

I'm afraid not. I can work out the chord length but then I'm lost when it comes to working out the angle.

Any chance you could show me an example with the working and I could probably take it from there?

skipjack

You don't need the chord length.
Using the article's notation, R = 750mm/2 = 375mm, h = 37.5mm, and d = R - h = 337.5mm,
so ? = 2arccos(337.5/375) = 2arccos(0.9) = 0.9020536 approximately (in radians),
and A = (375²/2)(0.9020536 - sin(0.9020536))mm² = 8258.33mm² approximately.

fishinmyi

skipjack,

Thanks a lot for that, I really appreciate it.

It's been a while since I had anything to do with trigonometry and there's no way I would have got there on my own.

Much appreciated.....

John.