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Solving Problems Trig

This document contains three examples of solving trigonometry problems related to applications. The first example calculates the time it takes for a rider on a Ferris wheel to reach a height of 50 feet. The second example determines the area of a hexagon with a circle inscribed within it in terms of the radius. The third example calculates the volume of water a rain gutter can hold using trigonometry to determine dimensions.

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Laura Lowery
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161 views3 pages

Solving Problems Trig

This document contains three examples of solving trigonometry problems related to applications. The first example calculates the time it takes for a rider on a Ferris wheel to reach a height of 50 feet. The second example determines the area of a hexagon with a circle inscribed within it in terms of the radius. The third example calculates the volume of water a rain gutter can hold using trigonometry to determine dimensions.

Uploaded by

Laura Lowery
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

Precalculus: Solving Problems with Trigonometry

Concepts: Applications
This section just shows some applications of trigonometry, so the lecture notes serve as the Practice Problems.
Example A Ferris Wheel 50 ft in diameter makes one revolution every 40 seconds. If the center of the wheel is 30 ft above
the ground, how long after reaching the low point is a rider 50 ft above the ground?
Solving this problem rests on constructing a good diagram. The radius of the wheel is 25 ft.

The wheel completes one revolution every 40 seconds.


The time it takes to complete + /2 revolutions (this will be a fraction of a complete revolution) will be the time it takes
for a person to move from the bottom of the wheel to 50 ft above the ground. Letting this time be x, we have
2
40
20
=
x =
( + /2).
+ /2
x

We now need to determine the angle . There is a reference triangle in our diagram:

hyp=25

opp=20


adj=15 = 252 202
From the reference triangle, we see that sin =

opp
20
4
=
= . Therefore, = arcsin(4/5).
hyp
25
5

The time it takes for a person to go from the bottom of wheel to 50 ft above ground is x =

20

(arcsin(4/5) + ) 15.9 s.

This arcsine has to be evaluated using a calculator.

Page 1 of 3

Precalculus: Solving Problems with Trigonometry

Example Determine the area of a hexagon with a circle of radius r inscribed within it in terms of r.

The interior angles of hexagon are 120 .


We see that the area of the hexagon is 12 times the area of the red triangle.
The area of the red triangle is 21 (base)(height).
We know the height is r.
Ive labeled the base of the red triangle b, since we need to figure out what that is in terms of r.
From our trig:
tan 60 =

opp
r
=
adj
b

b=

r
r
r
= .
=

tan 60
3/1
3

1
r
6r2
So area of hexagon = 12 rb = 6 r = = 2 3r2 .
2
3
3
r
Note: You could also have determined b = using similar triangles.
3

Page 2 of 3

Precalculus: Solving Problems with Trigonometry

Example A rain gutter is made from a sheet of metal 30cm wide by bending up one-third of the sheet on each side by
30 . If the gutter is 40m long, how much water will it hold?

Ive chosen to label the height of the red triangle in my sketch h and base b, since I will need both to determine the volume.
Lets get h first, which makes me what to work with the cosine of 60 to determine h.
cos 60 =

adj
h
=
hyp
10

h = 10 cos 60 = 10

1
= 5 cm
2

Lets get the base using Pythagorean Theorem:


p

b = 102 52 = 75 = 5 3 cm.
All setnow the volume of the gutter will be the area of the cross section in the diagram, times the length of the gutter
(40m = 400cm).

1
Volume = 400(2 bh + 10h) = 400((5 3)(10) + 10(10)) = 4000(5 3 + 10) 74, 641cm3
2

Page 3 of 3

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