Question

A cylindrical tank has a radius of 15 ft. and a height of 45 ft. How many cubic feet of water can the tank hold?

Answer 1

The formula to solve for this would be pi(r^2)xheight. Essentially what this formula does is it takes the are of the base (pi x r^2) and multiplies it by the height of the cylinder to find how many times the base can stack on itself until it reaches the top. This formula of base are times height works for all prisms with two bases. Here are the steps to solve:

1) plug in the values
- pi(15^2) x 45

2) solve for the base area of one of the circles
- pi(15^2)=225pi

3) multiply the base area by the height
- 225pi x 45 = 10,125pi

4) final answer: the tank can hold 10,125pi cubic feet of water