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| Math Central | Quandaries & Queries |
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Question from paritosh, a parent: how is the surface area of a elliptical dome be calculated when the two diameters are 55 metres and 35 metres and the height of the structure is 13.4 mts? |
Paritosh,
There is no easily expressible expression for the surface area of an ellipse. There is however an approximation you can use. Suppose the ellipse has equation
where a, b and c are the three radii. Wikipedia gives Knud Thomsen's formula for the approximate surface area as
where p is approximately 1.6075.
I hope this helps,
Harley
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