Made by Priy Ranjan Prakash

We come across many situations in our daily lives where we are required to find the surface areas of solid figures. For example, when we have to paint the wall of any room, or when we have to make a cubical box from any given metal sheet, or we have to cover any toy of cylindrical shape. In such cases, we require the surface area of these to have an estimate of paint or sheet required.

The lateral Surface area is the surface area of a 3D figure, but excluding the area of any bases. Lateral Area is often abbreviated L.A. Imagine a soup can. Now cut down the side of the can and roll it flat. What was the circumference of the base is now the length of a rectangle. To find the area of this rectangle which is the same as the lateral area, multiply this length by the width, which was the height of the can.

Surface Area
The surface area of a figure is the sum of the area of all surfaces of a figure. Surface Area is often abbreviated S.A. The surface area of a prism or cylinder is the lateral area plus the area of each base. Since the bases for a prism or cylinder are congruent, this is often expressed as twice the area of the base.

Let us consider a cube as shown above. Let a be the edge of the cube. Then, the Lateral Surface Area (i.e., the area of 4 standing faces) is given by,
Lateral Surface Area of Cube = 4a2

Total Surface Area (i.e., area of all six faces) is given by,
Surface Area of Cube = 6a2

Remember that while calculating the lateral surface area, we do not include the areas of the top and bottom surfaces as shown in the figure.

If we add the areas of top and bottom surface to the lateral surface area, then we will obtain the total surface area of the cube.

Can you find the edge of a cube whose total surface area is 216 sq. cm? Let the edge of the cube = a It is given that the surface area of the cube is 216 cm2.

We know that the total surface area of a cube is given by 6a2.

6a2 = 216 cm2 = a2 = cm2 = a2 = 36 cm2 = a = 6 cm Thus, the side of the cube is 6 cm.

Suppose your mother asks you to go to the market and buy 2.5 litres of milk. What does this term 2.5 litres represent? This term represents the amount of milk that you are required to buy from the market. This is called volume. Hence, 2.5 litres is the volume of the milk. Therefore, we can say that, The space occupied by an object is called its volume. The capacity of a container is the volume of the substance that can fill the container completely. For example, if a container can be completely filled with 5 litres of milk, it means that the capacity of the container is 5 litres. We must have seen cubical, cuboidal and cylindrical shaped objects in our surroundings like a container, a box, a roller, a room, etc. All these objects have different capacities or volumes. How can we find the capacity or the volume of an object?

To find the volume of solid figures like cube ,we have to know the formulae. Let us discuss volumes of a cube. Let us consider a cube of edge a as shown below.

The volume of the cube is given by the formula

Volume of Cube = a3

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