LINE, AREA AND VOLUME IN

CARTESIAN, CYLINDRICAL AND

SPHERICAL COORDINATES SYSTEM
Differential Elements
• In vector calculus the differential elements in length, area
and volume are useful.
• They are defined in the Cartesian, cylindrical and spherical
coordinate.
• Differential elements : an infinitesimal (extremely small)
change in said quantity.
 Infinitesimal Line Element

Consider a small infinitesimal displacement d between two points P1 and P2.

Moving from P1 (x,y,z) to P2 (x+dx, y+dy, z+dz) where dx, dy and dz are
small displacement along x, y and z respectively.
Differential Length ,
Cartesian Coordinates

az

ay
ax


dl  dxax  dya y  dza z
Infinitesimal Area Element
An infinitesimal area element of the surface of a small cube is given by
dA = (dx) (dy)

Area elements are actually vectors where the direction of the vector dis perpendicular to the plane
defined by the area. Since there is a choice of direction, we shall choose the area vector to always point
outwards from a closed surface, defined by the right-hand rule. So for the above, the infinitesimal area
vector is

d =dxdy/
Cartesian Coordinates


dS  dydza x

dS  dxdza y

dS  dxdya z
Infinitesimal Volume Element
An infinitesimal volume element in Cartesian coordinates is given by

dV = dx dy dz
Cartesian Coordinates

dl  dxa x  dya y  dza z

dS  dydza x

dS  dxdza y

dS  dxdya z

dv  dxdydz
Cylindrical coordinates

P
0


dl  da   da  dza z
9
Cylindrical Coordinates


dS  ddza 

dS  ddza

dS  dda z
Cylindrical Coordinates


dl  da   da  dza z

dS  ddza 

dS  ddza

dS  dda z

dv  dddz
Spherical Coordinates

d  r sin d


dl  dra r  rda  r sin da
Spherical Coordinates


dS  r 2 sin dda r

dS  r sin drda

dS  rdrd a
Spherical Coordinates


dl  dra r  rda  r sin da

dS  r 2 sin ddar

dS  r sin drda

dS  rdrd a

dv  r sin drdd
2

14
Example
Consider the object shown in Figure 3.1.
Calculate
(a) The distance BC
(b) The distance CD
(c) The surface area ABCD
(d) The surface area ABO
(e) The surface area AOFD
(f) The volume ABDCFO

Figure 3.1
Coordinates of A, B, C and D are given in cartesian. However, the object in figure 3.1 has
cylindrical symmetry. Hence, we solve the problem in cylindrical coordinates. The points
are transformed from Cartesian to cylindrical coordinates as follows:
 (a) The distance BC

(b) The distance CD

(c) The surface area ABCD

(d) The surface area ABO

(e) The surface area AOFD

(f) The volume ABDCFO

Line, Surface and Volume Integral
The familiar concept of integration will now be extended to
cases when the integrand involves a vector.
Whale falling from the sky
Let's say we have a whale, whom I'll name Whilly,
falling from the sky. Suppose he falls along a curved
path, perhaps because the air currents push him
this way and that.

When there is a force, such as gravity, and an object moving in

the region where the force acts, the force is said to "do work"
on the object. For example, suppose Whilly falls straight down
100 m from the sky (over some specified period of time):
What is the work done on Whilly by gravity as he falls
along the curved path C?

Usually, computing work is done with respect to a

straight force vector and a straight displacement
vector, so what can we do with this curved path?
You can start by imagining the curve is broken up
into many little displacement vectors:

Go ahead and give each one of these displacement vectors a name,

The work done by gravity along each one of these displacement

vectors is the gravity force vector, which I'll denote , dotted
with the displacement vector itself:
The total work done by gravity along the entire curve is then estimated by

But of course, this is calculus, so we don't just look at a specific number of finite steps along the
curve, C. We consider what limiting value this sum approaches as the size of those steps
shrinks smaller and smaller. This is captured with the following integral:
 Line Integral of Vector
• A line is the path along a curve in space. The terms such as line, curve, and contour
interchangeably.

The line integral • dl is the integral of tangential component of A along curve L.

• Given a vector field A and a curve L, we define the integral

• as the line integral of A around L (see Figure 3.2). If the path of integration is a closed curve
such as abca in Figure 3.2, eq. (3.11) becomes a closed contour integral

which is called the circulation of A around L.

Figure 3.2
• Certain parameters in electromagnetics are defined in terms of the line integral of
a vector field component in the direction of a given path.
• The component of a vector along a given path is found using the dot product. The
resulting scalar function is integrated along the path to obtain the desired result.
The line integral of the vector A along the path L is then defined as:
Given a vector field A, continuous in a region containing the smooth surface S, we
define the surface integral or the flux of A through S (see Figure 3.3) as

or simply

Figure 3.2
where, at any point on S, an is the unit normal to S. For a closed surface (defining a volume), thus
the eq. becomes

which is referred to as the net outward flux of 'A from S. Notice that a closed path defines an open
surface whereas a closed surface defines a volume. We define the integral

as the volume integral of the scalar over the volume v. The physical meaning of a line, surface, or
volume integral depends on the nature of the physical quantity represented by A or .
• The line integral of a vector field A could be interpreted as the work
done by the force field A on a particle moving along the path.
• The surface integral of a vector field A actually has a simpler
explanation. If the vector field A represents the flow of a fluid, then
the surface integral of A will represent the amount of fluid flowing
through the surface (per unit time).
• The amount of the fluid flowing through the surface per unit time is
also called the flux of fluid through the surface. For this reason, we
often call the surface integral of a vector field a flux integral.
• If water is flowing perpendicular to the surface, a lot of water will
flow through the surface and the flux will be large. On the other
hand, if water is flowing parallel to the surface, water will not flow
through the surface, and the flux will be zero.
It comes from the way in which flowing water,
etc. is described. Imagine water flowing in a
pipe with some speed 'v'. Let the cross
sectional area of the pipe be 'A'. Then the
amount of water flowing per second across
this area will be 'vA', *if* the flow were
perpendicular to the surface, which would be
case in a pipe. However, we can orient the
direction of the flow and the perpendicular to
the surface by any angle. In that case the flow
rate, or flux, would be 'vA cos(theta)' where
'theta' is the angle between the direction of
the flow and the surface.
Example
Given that F = x2ax - xzay - y2az, calculate the circulation of F around the
(closed) path shown in Figure 3.10.

Figure 3.10
The circulation of F around path L is given by

where the path is broken into segments numbered 1 to 4 as shown in Figure 3.10.
For segment 1, y = z = 0

Notice that d\ is always taken as along +ax so that the direction on segment 1 is taken care of by the
limits of integration. Thus,