Surface

Integrals
 Surface Integrals

Surface integral is a definite integral taken over a

surface.

The relationship between surface integrals and

surface area is much the same as the relationship
between line integrals and arc length.

Surface integrals have applications in physics,

particularly with the classical theory of
electromagnetism.

The definition of surface integral relies on

splitting the surface into small surface elements.
 Surface Integrals
• Suppose f is a function of three variables whose domain includes a surface S.

• We will define the surface integral of f over S in such a way that, in the case where
f (x, y, z) = 1, the value of the surface integral is equal to the surface area of S.

• We start with parametric surfaces and then deal with the special case where S is the
graph of a function of two variables.
 Parametric surfaces

• Consider the surface S above a

rectangle plane
 Parametric Surfaces
• Suppose that a surface has a vector equation

r(u, v) = x(u, v) i + y(u, v) j + z(u, v) k (u, v)  D

• We first assume that the parameter

domain D is a rectangle and we
divide it into subrectangles Rij with
dimensions u and v.

• Then the surface S is divided

into corresponding patches
Sij as in Figure 1.
 Parametric Surfaces
• We evaluate f at a point in each patch, multiply by the area Sij of the patch, and form the Riemann sum

• Then we take the limit as the number of patches increases and define the surface integral of f over the surface S
as

• Notice the analogy with the definition of a line integral and also the analogy with the definition of a double integral.
 Parametric Surfaces
• To evaluate the surface integral in Equation 1 we approximate the patch area Sij by the area of an
approximating parallelogram in the tangent plane.
• In our discussion of surface area we made the approximation
Sij  | ru  rv | u v
where

are the tangent vectors at a corner of Sij.

 Parametric Surfaces
• If the components are continuous and ru and rv are nonzero and nonparallel in the
interior of D, it can be shown, even when D is not a rectangle, that

• This should be compared with the formula for a line integral:

 Surface Integral
•  
Consider the surface given by a parametric representation

where varies over region R in the plane

Assume is piecewise smooth. has a normal vector
and unit normal at every point.
 Surface integral
•  Now, we define the surface integral, over for a given vector function by

Here and is the area of

the parallelogram with sides and
 Parametric Surfaces
• Observe also that

• Formula 2 allows us to compute a surface integral by converting it into a double integral

over the parameter domain D.
• When using this formula, remember that f (r(u, v)) is
evaluated by writing x = x(u, v), y = y(u, v), and z = z(u, v) in the formula for
f (x, y, z).
 Flux integral
•Let
  be the velocity field of a fluid.

Volume of fluid flowing through an element of surface area per unit time
is
The total volume of fluid passing through the surface per unit time is
called the flux of through
flux
 Procedure
•  Step1: Find the parametric representation of the given surface
• Step2:Find the partial derivatives and
• Step3:Find
• Step4: Write in terms of the parametric form
• Step5: Find and substitute in
 Problems
•1.  Compute the flux of water through the parabolic cylinder
if the velocity vector speed being measured in meter/sec.
(, but water has the density gram/cm^3 =1ton/meter^3).
•  Solution:
Water is flowing through the parabolic cylinder velocity vector is given. We want
flux of water. Flux of water is given by surface integral over surface. So we want to
evaluate the surface integral over

Step1:
Step2:
Step3:
Step4:
•  Step5:
•  2. Evaluate the surface integral over when and is the portion of the plane in the
first octant.
Solution:
Step1: Let

Step2:
Step3:
Step4:
•  Step5:
•  3. Evaluate the surface integral over when and

Solution:
Step1:
Step2:
Step3:

Step4:
•  Step5:
Practice problems