Question

Use the following image to answer the questions below. The base is a regular pentagon and the vertex is directly above the center of the base:
a. If you knew the dimensions of this solid, how would you calculate the surface area?
b. How would you calculate the volume?
c. How does the volume of this pentagonal pyramid compare to the volume of a prism with a congruent pentagonal base and a congruent height?
d. What cross-sectional shapes, regular or irregular, could you get by cutting a plane through this figure? Explain your answer.

Answer 1

a. The lateral area is the area of 5 congruent triangles. The strategy for computing their area will depend on the dimensions given. There are methods for computing triangle area based on side lengths, base length and height, coordinates of the points, and other dimensions. One straightforward way, given the appropriate dimensions is to multiply the slant height by the perimeter of the base, then divide that product by 2.

The base area is that of 5 congruent triangles. Again, their total area can be computed from half the product of the perimeter of the base and the apothem (height of the triangle).

The total surface area is the sum of lateral area and base area.

For example, given the apothem of the base (a) and the slant height of the side face (s), the total surface area (A) will be

... A = 5·a·tan(36°)·(a + s)

b. The volume is conventionally calculated as 1/3 of the product of the base area (B) and the height (h).

... V = (1/3)Bh

c. The volume of a prism with the same base area and height will be

... V = Bh

The volume of a pyramid is 1/3 of that.

d. A plane can intersect this pyramid to form a triangle, rectangle, trapezoid or other irregular quadrilateral, pentagon, or hexagon. The number of edges the cross-section has depends on the number of faces (including the base) the plane cuts. That number can be 3 through 6.