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MATH 1171: Section 4.1 – Related Rates

Related rates problems involve rates of change of related quantities. If we know an equation relating
two quantities then we can determine an equation relating their rates of change by differentiating.

For example, we know that the radius and area of a circle are related by the equation ! = #$ ! . If we
know at what rate the radius is increasing (or decreasing) at a certain instant, we can determine the
rate at which the area is increasing (or decreasing) at that same instant.

All related rates problems are solved in a similar way and so we will look at a general method for
solving any related rates problem:

Example 1: A spherical cell is growing so that its volume is increasing at a rate of 4 'm" per hour.
How fast is its radius of the cell changing when the radius is exactly 12 'm?

**GENERAL METHOD FOR SOLVING RELATED RATES PROBLEMS:

Step 1: Draw a picture. Name/label the changing quantities.

Step 2: Identify the given and requested rates of change.

Step 3: Write an equation relating the variables whose rates of change you identified above.
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Step 4: Use the Chain Rule or Implicit Differentiation to differentiate the equation. This gives
an equation relating the variables and their rates of change.

Step 5: Sub in the information you know, and solve for the requested rate of change.

Step 6: Answer using a complete sentence. Be careful to identify units properly.

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Example 2: A lighthouse is located on a small island 3 km away from a point P on a straight shoreline.
Its light revolves at a rate of 4 revolutions per minute. How fast is the beam of light moving
along the shoreline when the beam is 1 km from the point P?
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Example 3: When air expands without gaining or losing heat its pressure + and volume , are related
by the equation,
+ ∙ , #.% = .

where . is constant. At a certain instant, the volume is 400 cm3, the pressure is 80 kPa
(kilopascals), and the pressure is decreasing at a rate of 10 kPa per minute. At what rate is the
volume changing?
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Example 4: Suppose a cylindrical tank of radius 1.5 meters is filling with water at a rate of 0.25 cubic
meters per minute. Show that the water level in the tank will rise at a constant rate, and find
this rate.
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Example 5: A kite 100 feet above the ground moves horizontally at a rate of 8 feet per second. How
fast is the angle between the kite’s string and the horizontal changing when 200 feet of string
have been let out?
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Example 6: At noon, ship A is 150 km due west of ship B. Ship A is sailing east at 35 km/hr and
ship B is sailing north at 25 km/hr. How fast is the distance between the two ships increasing
at 4:00 pm?
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Example 7: Water is leaking out of a conical tank at a rate of 0.1 m3 per minute. The tank has height
6 meters and the diameter at its top is 4 meters. How fast is the water level in the tank falling
when the depth of the water in the center of the tank is 2 meters?