Skip to content
Formula

Volume of a right circular cylinder

Mensuration • Solids • Cylinder

Formula

A right circular cylinder of base radius and height has volume .

How to use it

  1. 1Halve a given diameter first; the formula takes the radius.
  2. 2Where and are given as a ratio, write both through one multiplier so that the volume becomes a single cubic in .
  3. 3Take when a radius is a multiple of , which is what makes these volumes come out whole.

Worked example

A cylindrical tank has radius m and height m. Find its volume.

Step-by-step

  1. 1

    Why: The in the radius cancels the denominator of .

  2. 2
    m

Answer

m

Watch out

The volume scales as but only as , so doubling the radius quadruples the capacity while doubling the height merely doubles it. A hollow pipe's volume of material is the difference of two such cylinders, not one of them.

Builds on

Also known as

volume of a cylinder, pi r squared h, capacity of a cylindrical vessel

Appears in past papers

2020 (I)

2019 (II)

2019 (I)

2017 (II)

2017 (I)

2016 (II)