Hi Mandy,

The volume is the area of the hexagon times the thickness. If you look at the answer Sue gave to a question about the area of a hexagon you can apply it to your situation. You have a side length of a = 2 m and Pythagoras theorem gives a height of √3 = 1.7 m. Thus the area of the hexagon is

3a 1.7 = 6 1.7 = 10.4 sq m.

The thickness is 10 cm = 1/10 m and hence the volume of concrete you need is

10.4 1/10 = 1.0 cubic metres.

If you look at the answer Chris and Harley gave to another of the questions we received you will see that the relationship between the width W of a hexagon and the length of the side L (called a above) is

W = √3 L

Since you have L = 2 m the width will be

√3 2 = 3.5 m.

Penny