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Surveying 2
By Dr. Khamis Naba Sayl
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‫المحاضرة‬
‫االولى‬
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AREAS AND VOLUMES

In civil engineering works such as designing of long bridges, dams, reservoirs, etc., the area of
catchments of rivers is required. The areas of fields are also required for planning and
management of projects. The area is required for the title documents of land.
In many civil engineering projects, earthwork involves excavation and removal and dumping of
earth, therefore it is required to make good estimates of volumes of earthwork. Volume
computations are also needed to determine the capacity of bins, tanks, and reservoirs, and to
check the stockpiles of coal, gravel, and other material.
Computing areas and volumes is an important part of the office work involved in surveying.

1. AREAS

The method of computation of area depends upon the shape of the boundary of the tract and
accuracy required. The area of the tract of the land is computed from its plan which may be
enclosed by straight, irregular or combination of straight and irregular boundaries.

1.1 Computation of Areas of Regular Figures

When the boundaries are straight the area is determined by subdividing the plan into simple
geometrical figures such as triangles, rectangles, trapezoids, etc. Standard expressions as given
below are available for the areas of straight figures.

(a) Triangle:

Area of triangle =

in which C is the included angle between the sides a and b.

The area of a triangle whose lengths of sides are known can be computed by the
Formula:
Area = √
where a, b, and c are the lengths of sides of the triangle and s = (a + b + c).

(b) Rectangle:
If b and ‘d’ are the dimension of a rectangle,

(c) Trapezium:
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where d is the distance between two parallel sides and h1 and h2 lengths of parallel sides.

Units used for finding areas are square metres, hectare and square kilometre. Relation among
them are:

Hectare = 100 m × 100 m = 1 × 104 m2

Square kilometer = 1000 m × 1000 m = 1 × 106 m2

= 100 hectare

1.2 Areas of Irregular Shapes

For this purpose from a survey line offsets are taken at regular intervals and area is calculated
from any one of the following methods:
(a) Area by Trapezoidal rule
(b) Area by Simpson’s rule.

(a) Area by Trapezoidal Rule:

In trapezoidal rule, the area is divided into a number of trapezoids, boundaries being assumed to
be straight between pairs of offsets.

The area of each trapezoid is determined and added together to derive the whole area. If there are
n offsets at equal interval of d then the total area is
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Example 1:Compute the area of the tract shown in Figure

Solution
By Equation above

=2860 m2

(b) Area by Simpson’s Rule

In Simpson's rule it is assumed that the irregular boundary is made up of parabolic arcs. The
areas of the successive pairs of intercepts are added together to get the total area.

To derive the equation of Simpson’s Rule

In this method, the boundary line between two segment is assumed parabolic.
The first two segments of figure above in which boundary between the ordinates is assumed
parabolic.
∴ Area of the first two segments
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Area of Irregularly Spaced Offsets

For irregularly curved boundaries like that in Figure 12.3, the spacing of offsets along the
reference line varies. Spacing should be selected so that the curved boundary is accurately
defined when adjacent offset points on it are connected by straight lines. A formula for
calculating area for this case is:

Where a, b, c are the varying offset spaces, and h0, h1, h2 are the observed offsets.
Example: compute the area of the tract shown in figure

Solution

= 4490 m2
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a- Mid-ordinate rule
b- The average coordinate rule
c- The trapezoidal rule
d- Simpson's rule
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H.W

Example: A tract of land has three straight boundaries AB, BC, and CD. The fourth Boundary DA is
irregular. The measured length are as under
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