MATH AI HL

INTERNAL ASSESMENT

“Finding the volume to surface area ratio of a building”

Session: May 2022

Personal Code: hrl075

Content:

Introduction 1

Investigation 2

Finding the function and plotting the graph 3

Finding the volume 7

Finding surface area of the tower 9

Surface area to Volume ratio 11

Conclusion 12

Limitation 12

Bibliography 13
Finding the volume of a building
Introduction
Architecture have always been a field that I am interested in. I would look through the

different buildings and how it has come about and the different components which has

come into consideration when creating the building itself. throughout time I have found it

very interesting on how the architecture world have changed and evolved. There are taller

buildings being built or even expanding in height wise as less land is available for

expansion that occupies more land. One of the important component of building a comes

from finding its volume which determines its energy efficiency and the amount of heating

and cooling system it requires. After I had done some research, I have come across the

St. Mary Axe tower (or known as the Swiss Re Building). It has one of the most unique

architecture yet still being a sustainable building. So I became curious as to what would

happen if the St Mary Axe tower was to expand in height wise, whether it would still be

considered a sustainable building and how tall could it expand to that would reach its

maximum height. I found out that using the ratio between the area and the volume of a

building could determine the buildings sustainability 1 . Hence, I wanted to use the

knowledge of calculus that I have gained in my math class to determine the volume and

the surface area of a building that may be going through an expansion.

1
Simone. “Surface-Area-to-Volume Ratio / Building Shape.” GRÜN ECO DESIGN, 4 May 2017,
https://gruenecodesign.com.au/surface-area-to-volume-ratio-building-
shape/#:~:text=The%20surface%20area%20to%20volume,heat%20gain%20and%20heat%20loss.

1
 Admin. “These 13 Buildings Redefined Architecture in the Past 5 Years.” Designworx, 7 Aug. 2020,
https://www.designworxasia.com/these-13-buildings-redefined-architecture-in-the-past-5-years/.

Investigation
Finding the volume of a given solid is given by the formula:
b
𝑣 = ∫ πy 2 dx
a

I would use the given formula to calculate the initial volume of the building.

To find the volume of the tower, the formula indicates that the equation of the line needs

to be found first. Several measurements are required to be found prior to finding the

function of the graph of the tower. Several measurements which I needed to find was

the tower’s height and the base radius. As I am not living where the tower is located and

the actual size of the tower would be hard to physically measured, I had researched its

measurements on the internet. Where I had found the height to be 180m and I found the

diameter length of the base as 49m2

2
“✅ 30 St Mary Axe (the Gherkin) - Data, Photos & Plans.” WikiArquitectura, 9 Apr. 2018,
https://en.wikiarquitectura.com/building/30-st-mary-axe-the-gherkin/.

2
The radius of a circle can be found using the diameter:
𝑑
𝑟=
2
The diameter of the tower would give the radius as:
49
𝑟= = 24.5𝑚
2
Figure.1 height, floor area and base radius of the tower
Height 180 m
Base diameter 49 m
Base radius 24.5 m

Finding the function and plotting the graph:

In order to find the volume of the tower, I had to first find the equation of the line which

outlines the tower. Maintaining the height and floor area accordingly. I outlined the image

of the tower that I had found on the internet in geogebra https://www.geogebra.org in

order to find the equation of the line. using geogebra I plotted several points to find the

equation of the graph of the tower shown in Figure.1. I used the base radius and height

that I had found prior in order to have a more accurate result. I recorded values of x at an

even interval of 20 that is shown in figure.3

After plotting the points in the graph I inserted the points in my gdc to find the equation of

the line. After inserting the points that I plotted in figure.1 in list one and list 2 in the stat

option in the gdc as shown in figure.2. I tested out different polynomials which would then

have the best fit with the points that I plotted

3
Initial tower measurements:

Figure.1 graph of the tower

x y
0 24
20 26
40 28
60 28
80 27
100 26
120 24
140 20
160 14
180 0

Figure.3 points chosen

Figure.2 plotting the points chosen in figure.3 to list 1 and list 2 in gdc

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After testing different polynomials, I found that using a quartic (𝑥 4 ) polynomial has the

best fit which has a high correlation of 𝑟 2 = 0.997. the plotted graph can be seen in

figure.4

Figure.4 equation of the line plotted in graph

Figure.5 quartic equation

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After finding the values through testing out different polynomials and finding which one

fits best, I felt that quartic had a better fit for the graph. the values found in Figure.5 would

then create the formula of 𝑦 = −0.0000001𝑥 4 + 0.00004𝑥 3 − 0.004𝑥 2 + 0.2𝑥 + 23.7

making this the formula of the tower before expansion.

Through this investigation I wanted to expand the height of the tower by 20 meter adding

the initial height from 180m to 200m until it reaches the height of 220m.

By using the method above:

x y
0 24
20 26
40 28
60 28
80 27
100 26
120 24
140 21
160 17
180 10
220 0
Figure.7 points chosen

Figure.6 plotted points in graph

Formula of tower after 1st expansion:

−0.00000006𝑥 4 + 0.00002𝑥 3 − 0.003𝑥 2 + 0.2𝑥 + 23.8

6
 x y
0 24
20 26
40 28
60 28
80 28
100 28
120 28
140 26
160 23
180 18
200 12
220 0

Figure.7 plotted points in graph figure.8 points chosen

Formula of tower after 2nd expansion:

−0.00000003𝑥 4 + 0.000005𝑥 3 − 0.0006𝑥 2 + 0.07𝑥 + 24.2

Finding the volume:

After finding the formula for the tower and the expanded towers. I used the volume of

revolution formula to calculate the volume for each tower.

using the solid of revolution formula:

b
𝑣 = ∫ πy 2 dx
a

As 𝑦 = −0.0000001𝑥 4 + 0.00004𝑥 3 − 0.004𝑥 2 + 0.2𝑥 + 23.7 substituting this into the

formula

180
𝑣=∫ 𝜋(−0.0000001𝑥 4 + 0.00004𝑥 3 − 0.004𝑥 2 + 0.2𝑥 + 23.7)2 𝑑𝑥
0

7
Placing the 𝜋 outside as it is a constant value and wouldn’t affect the result.

180
= 𝜋∫ (−0.0000001𝑥 4 + 0.00004𝑥 3 − 0.004𝑥 2 + 0.2𝑥 + 23.7)2 𝑑𝑥
0

Using g.d.c to find the value

𝑣𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑒𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 = 780504.3 (1 𝑑. 𝑝. )

After 1st expansion:

Finding the formula using the method above:

−0.00000006𝑥 4 + 0.00002𝑥 3 − 0.003𝑥 2 + 0.2𝑥 + 23.8

Volume of tower after 1st expansion:

using the formula as above:

200
𝑣 = 𝜋∫ (−0.00000006𝑥 4 + 0.00002𝑥 3 − 0.003𝑥 2 + 0.2𝑥 + 23.8)2 𝑑𝑥
0

𝑣𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑒𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 = 396107.6 (1 𝑑. 𝑝. )

After 2nd expansion:

Finding the formula using the method above:

−0.00000003𝑥 4 + 0.000005𝑥 3 − 0.0006𝑥 2 + 0.07𝑥 + 24.2

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using the formula as above:

220
= 𝜋∫ (−0.00000003𝑥 4 + 0.000005𝑥 3 − 0.0006𝑥 2 + 0.07𝑥 + 24.2)2 𝑑𝑥
0

𝑣𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑒𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 = 367057.9(1 𝑑. 𝑝. )

Finding the surface area of the tower

As the formula of the surface area for solids of revolution is not in the IB math syllabus I

had to do my own research on the equation. The surface area using solids of revolution

formula can be classified to be the following:

𝑏 𝑏
𝑑𝑦 2 𝑑𝑦 2
𝐴 = ∫ 2𝜋𝑦𝑑𝑠 = 2𝜋 ∫ 𝑦√1 + [ √
] 𝑑𝑥 𝑎𝑠 𝑑𝑠 = 1 + [ ]
𝑎 𝑎 𝑑𝑥 𝑑𝑥

Surface area of initial tower:

𝑑𝑦
As the surface area formula requires I had to derivate −0.0000001𝑥 4 + 0.00004𝑥 3 −
𝑑𝑥

𝑑𝑦
0.004𝑥 2 + 0.2𝑥 + 23.7 which gave me 𝑑𝑥 = −0.0000004𝑥 3 + 0.00012𝑥 2 − 0.008𝑥 + 0.2

I then substituted these into the formula:

180
𝐴 = 2𝜋 ∫ (−0.0000001𝑥 4 + 0.00004𝑥 3 − 0.004𝑥 2 + 0.2𝑥
0

+ 23.7) (√1 + [−0.0000004𝑥 3 + 0.00012𝑥 2 − 0.008𝑥 + 0.2]2 )

9
Using gdc to evaluate and this gave me the result as:

𝑖𝑛𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎 = 41744.7 (1 𝑑. 𝑝. )

Surface area after 1st expansion:

Using the same method as above

𝑦 = −0.00000006𝑥 4 + 0.00002𝑥 3 − 0.003𝑥 2 + 0.2𝑥 + 23.8

Substituting into the surface area equation:

200
𝐴 = 2𝜋 ∫ (−0.00000006𝑥 4 + 0.00002𝑥 3 − 0.003𝑥 2 + 0.2𝑥
0

+ 23.8) (√1 + [−0.00000024𝑥 3 + 0.00006𝑥 2 − 0.006𝑥 + 0.2]2 )

Using gdc to evaluate:

𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎 𝑎𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 1𝑠𝑡 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 = 31230.4 (1𝑑. 𝑝)

Surface area after 2nd expansion:

Using the same method as above

𝑦 = −0.00000003𝑥 4 + 0.000005𝑥 3 − 0.0006𝑥 2 + 0.07𝑥 + 24.2

Substituting into the surface area equation:

220
𝐴 = 2𝜋 ∫ (−0.00000003𝑥 4 + 0.000005𝑥 3 − 0.0006𝑥 2 + 0.07𝑥
0

+ 24.2) (√1 + [−0.00000012𝑥 3 + 0.000015𝑥 2 − 0.0012𝑥 + 0.07]2 )

10
Using gdc to evaluate:

𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎 𝑎𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 2𝑛𝑑 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 = 29966.7 (1𝑑. 𝑝)

Surface area to volume ratio:

Comparison:

Surface area Volume

Initial value 41744.7 780504.3

After 1st expansion 31230.4 396107.6

After 2nd expansion 31230.4 367057.9

Surface area to volume ratio of initial tower:

41744.7 ∶ 780504.3

Surface area to volume ratio after 1st expansion:

31230.4 ∶ 396107.6

Surface area to volume ratio after 2nd expansion:

31230.4 ∶ 367057.9

After finding both the volume and the surface area of the towers after 3 expansions the

result shows that the both of these values decreases after each expansion, making the

initial tower having the biggest volume and surface area.

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Conclusion:

From the investigation that I had carried out the result was that as the height increases

the volume and surface area decreases as the image of the tower is stretched the volume

of the tower would decrease. The decreasing result of the volume could be caused by the

fact that the decrease in the diameter is more significant than the volume caused by its

height. The result of this investigation was not what I expected as I expected the volume

and the surface area of the building to increase but it turns out instead that both the values

decreases after several transformations from its height.

Limitation:

when plotting the building in the grid to find the function, some part of the buildings base

is cut off or not included as there it does not show a straight line but a curve. The result I

got is an assumption based on the given data that I had found from the internet; the

result may not be 100 percent accurate as there may be some difference from rounding

up some of the numbers.

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Bibliography

Simone. “Surface-Area-to-Volume Ratio / Building Shape.” GRÜN ECO DESIGN, 4 May

2017, https://gruenecodesign.com.au/surface-area-to-volume-ratio-building-

shape/#:~:text=The%20surface%20area%20to%20volume,heat%20gain%20and%20he

at%20loss.

Accessed on: 22/12/21

Admin. “These 13 Buildings Redefined Architecture in the Past 5 Years.” Designworx, 7

Aug. 2020, https://www.designworxasia.com/these-13-buildings-redefined-architecture-

in-the-past-5-years/.

Accessed on: 22/12/21

“✅ 30 St Mary Axe (the Gherkin) - Data, Photos & Plans.” WikiArquitectura, 9

Apr. 2018, https://en.wikiarquitectura.com/building/30-st-mary-axe-the-gherkin/.

Accessed on: 22/12/21

13