We learned in Section 14.2 how to compute the signed volume under a surface over a region : . It follows naturally that if on , then the volume between and on is
Let and be continuous functions on a closed, bounded region , where for all in . The volume between and over is
Find the volume of the space region bounded by the planes and where . In Figure 14.6.1(a) the planes are drawn; in (b), only the defined region is given. ††margin: (a) (b)
SolutionWe need to determine the region over which we will integrate. To do so, we need to determine where the planes intersect. They have common -values when . Applying a little algebra, we have:
The planes intersect along the line . Therefore the region is bounded by , , and ; we can convert these bounds to integration bounds of , . Thus
The volume between the surfaces is cubic units.
In the preceding example, we found the volume by evaluating the integral
Note how we can rewrite the integrand as an integral, much as we did in Section 14.1:
Thus we can rewrite the double integral that finds volume as
This no longer looks like a “double integral,” but more like a “triple integral.” Just as our first introduction to double integrals was in the context of finding the area of a plane region, our introduction into triple integrals will be in the context of finding the volume of a space region.
To formally find the volume of a closed, bounded region in space, such as the one shown in Figure 14.6.2(a), we start with an approximation. Break into rectangular solids; the solids near the boundary of may possibly not include portions of and/or include extra space. In Figure 14.6.2(b), we zoom in on a portion of the boundary of to show a rectangular solid that contains space not in ; as this is an approximation of the volume, this is acceptable and this error will be reduced as we shrink the size of our solids.
The volume of the solid is , where , and give the dimensions of the rectangular solid in the , and directions, respectively. By summing up the volumes of all solids, we get an approximation of the volume of :
Let represent the length of the longest diagonal of rectangular solids in the subdivision of . As , the volume of each solid goes to 0, as do each of , and , for all . Our calculus experience tells us that taking a limit as turns our approximation of into an exact calculation of . Before we state this result in a theorem, we use a definition to define some terms.
Let be a closed, bounded region in space. Let and be real numbers, let and be continuous functions of , and let and be continuous functions of and .
The volume of is denoted by a triple integral, .
The iterated integral is evaluated as
Evaluating the above iterated integral is triple integration.
Our informal understanding of the notation is “sum up lots of little volumes over ,” analogous to our understanding of and . We now state the major theorem of this section.
Let be a closed, bounded region in space and let be any subdivision of into rectangular solids, where the subregion has dimensions and volume .
The volume of is
If is defined as the region bounded by the planes and , the cylinders and , and the surfaces and , where , and on , then
can be determined using iterated integration with other orders of integration (there are 6 total), as long as is defined by the region enclosed by a pair of planes, a pair of cylinders, and a pair of surfaces.
We evaluated the area of a plane region by iterated integration, where the bounds were “from curve to curve, then from point to point.” Theorem 14.6.2 allows us to find the volume of a space region with an iterated integral with bounds “from surface to surface, then from curve to curve, then from point to point.” In the iterated integral
the bounds and define a region in the - plane over which the region exists in space. However, these bounds are also defining surfaces in space; is a plane and is a cylinder. The combination of these 6 surfaces enclose, and define, .
Watch the video:
Triple Integrals from https://youtu.be/zFy-OpajEtA
Examples will help us understand triple integration, including integrating with various orders of integration.
Find the volume of the space region in the 1st octant bounded by the plane , shown in Figure 14.6.3(a), using the order of integration . Set up the triple integrals that give the volume in the other 5 orders of integration.
SolutionStarting with the order of integration , we need to first find bounds on . The region is bounded below by the plane (because we are restricted to the first octant) and above by ; .
To find the bounds on and , we “collapse” the region onto the - plane, giving the triangle shown in Figure 14.6.3(b). (We know the equation of the line in two ways. First, by setting , we have . Secondly, we know this is going to be a straight line between the points and in the - plane.)
We define that region , in the integration order of , with bounds and . Thus the volume of the region is:
From this step on, we are evaluating a double integral as done many times before. We skip these steps and give the final volume, | ||||
The order :
Now consider the volume using the order of integration . The bounds on are the same as before, . Collapsing the space region on the - plane as shown in Figure 14.6.3(b), we now describe this triangle with the order of integration . This gives bounds and . Thus the volume is given by the triple integral
The order :
Following our “surface to surface…” strategy, we need to determine the -surfaces that bound our space region. To do so, approach the region “from behind,” in the direction of increasing . The first surface we hit as we enter the region is the - plane, defined by . We come out of the region at the plane ; solving for , we have . Thus the bounds on are: .
Now collapse the space region onto the - plane, as shown in Figure 14.6.4(a). (Again, we find the equation of the line by setting in the equation .) We need to find bounds on this region with the order . The curves that bound are and ; the points that bound are 0 and 2. Thus the triple integral giving volume is:
The order :
The -bounds are the same as the order above. We now consider the triangle in Figure 14.6.4(a) and describe it with the order : and . Thus the volume is given by:
The order :
We now need to determine the -surfaces that determine our region. Approaching the space region from “behind” and moving in the direction of increasing , we first enter the region at , and exit along the plane . Solving for , this plane has equation . Thus has bounds .
Now collapse the region onto the - plane, as shown in Figure 14.6.4(b). The curves bounding this triangle are and ; is bounded by the points to . Thus the triple integral giving volume is:
The order :
The -bounds are the same as in the order above. We now determine the bounds of the triangle in Figure 14.6.4(b) using the order . We see is bounded by and ; is bounded between and . This leads to the triple integral:
This problem was long, but hopefully useful, demonstrating how to determine bounds with every order of integration to describe the region . In practice, we only need 1, but being able to do them all gives us flexibility to choose the order that suits us best.
In the previous example, we collapsed the surface into the -, -, and - planes as we determined the “curve to curve, point to point” bounds of integration. Since the surface was a triangular portion of a plane, this collapsing, or projecting, was simple: the projection of a straight line in space onto a coordinate plane is a line.
The following example shows us how to do this when dealing with more complicated surfaces and curves.
Consider the surfaces and , as shown in Figure 14.6.5(a). The curve of their intersection is shown, along with the projection of this curve into the coordinate planes, shown dashed. Find the equations of the projections into the coordinate planes.
SolutionThe two surfaces are and . To find where they intersect, it is natural to set them equal to each other: . This is an implicit function of and that gives all points in the - plane where the values of the two surfaces are equal.
We can rewrite this implicit function by completing the square:
Thus in the - plane the projection of the intersection is a circle with radius 2, centered at .
To project onto the - plane, we do a similar procedure: find the and values where the values on the surface are the same. We start by solving the equation of each surface for . In this particular case, it works well to actually solve for :
.
Thus we have (after again completing the square):
and ellipse centered at in the - plane with a major axis of length 8 and a minor axis of length 4.
Finally, to project the curve of intersection into the - plane, we solve equation for . Since is a cylinder that lacks the variable , it becomes our equation of the projection in the - plane.
All three projections are shown in Figure 14.6.5(b).
Set up the triple integrals that find the volume of the space region bounded by the surfaces , and , as shown in Figure 14.6.6(a), with the orders of integration , and .
SolutionThe order :
The region is bounded below by the plane and above by the plane . The cylinder does not offer any bounds in the -direction, as that surface is parallel to the -axis. Thus .
Collapsing the region into the - plane, we get part of the region bounded by the circle with equation as shown in Figure 14.6.6(b). As a function of , this half circle has equation . Thus is bounded below by and above by : . The bounds of the half circle are . All together, the bounds of integration and triple integral are as follows:
We evaluate this triple integral:
With the order :
The region is bounded “below” in the -direction by the surface and “above” by the surface . Thus the bounds are .
Collapsing the region onto the - plane gives the region shown in Figure 14.6.7(a); this half disk is bounded by a circle with equation . (We find this curve by solving each surface for , then setting them equal to each other. We have and . Thus .) It is bounded below by and above by , where is bounded by . All together, we have:
With the order :
is bounded below by the surface and above by . We then collapse the region onto the - plane and get the triangle shown in Figure 14.6.7(b). (The hypotenuse is the line , just as the plane.) Thus is bounded by and is bounded by . This gives:
The following theorem states two things that should make “common sense” to us. First, using the triple integral to find volume of a region should always return a positive number; we are computing volume here, not signed volume. Secondly, to compute the volume of a “complicated” region, we could break it up into subregions and compute the volumes of each subregion separately, summing them later to find the total volume.
Let be a closed, bounded region in space, and let and be non-overlapping regions such that .
We use this latter property in the next example.
Find the volume of the space region bounded by the coordinate planes, and , as shown in Figure 14.6.8(a). Set up the triple integrals that find the volume of in all 6 orders of integration. ††margin: (a) (b)
SolutionFollowing the bounds-determining strategy of “surface to surface, curve to curve, and point to point,” we can see that the most difficult orders of integration are the two in which we integrate with respect to first, for there are two “upper” surfaces that bound in the -direction. So we start by noting that we have
We now collapse the region onto the - axis, as shown in Figure 14.6.8(b). The boundary of , the line from to , is shown in part (b) of the figure as a dashed line; it has equation . (We can recognize this in two ways: one, in collapsing the line from to onto the - plane, we simply ignore the -values, meaning the line now goes from to . Secondly, the two surfaces meet where is equal to : thus )
We use the second property of Theorem 14.6.3 to state that
where and are the space regions above the plane regions and , respectively. Thus we can say
All that is left is to determine bounds of and , depending on whether we are integrating with order or . We give the final integrals here, leaving it to the reader to confirm these results.
:
:
The remaining four orders of integration do not require a sum of triple integrals. In Figure 14.6.9 we show collapsed onto the other two coordinate planes. Using these graphs, we give the final orders of integration here, again leaving it to the reader to confirm these results.
:
:
:
:
We give one more example of finding the volume of a space region.
Set up a triple integral that gives the volume of the space region bounded by and . These surfaces are plotted in Figure 14.6.10(a) and (b), respectively; the region is shown in part (c) of the figure.
SolutionThe main point of this example is this: integrating with respect to first is rather straightforward; integrating with respect to first is not.
The order :
The bounds on are clearly . Collapsing onto the - plane gives the ellipse shown in Figure 14.6.10(c). The equation of this ellipse is found by setting the two surfaces equal to each other:
We can describe this ellipse with the bounds
Thus we find volume as
The order :
Integrating with respect to is not too difficult. Since the surface is a cylinder whose directrix is the -axis, it does not create a border for . The paraboloid does; solving for , we get the bounds
Collapsing onto the - axes gives the region shown in Figure 14.6.11(a); the lower curve is from the cylinder, with equation . The upper curve is from the paraboloid; with , the curve is . Thus bounds on are ; the bounds on are . Thus we have:
The order :
This order takes more effort as must be split into two subregions. The two surfaces create two sets of upper/lower bounds in terms of ; the cylinder creates bounds
for region and the paraboloid creates bounds
for region .
Collapsing onto the - axes gives the regions shown in Figure 14.6.11(b). We find the equation of the curve by noting that the equation of the ellipse seen in Figure 14.6.10(c) has equation
Substitute this expression for in either surface equation, or . In both cases, we find
Region , corresponding to , has bounds
and region , corresponding to , has bounds
Thus the volume of is given by:
If all one wanted to do in Example 14.6.6 was find the volume of the region , one would have likely stopped at the first integration setup (with order ) and computed the volume from there. However, we included the other two methods (1) to show that it could be done, “messy” or not, and (2) because sometimes we “have” to use a less desirable order of integration in order to actually integrate.
There are uses for triple integration beyond merely finding volume, just as there are uses for integration beyond “area under the curve.” These uses start with understanding how to integrate functions of three variables, which is effectively no different than integrating functions of two variables. This leads us to a definition, followed by an example.
Let be a closed, bounded region in space, over which , , , and are all continuous, and let and be real numbers.
The iterated integral is evaluated as
Evaluate
SolutionWe evaluate this integral according to Definition 14.6.2.
We continue as we have in the past, showing fewer steps. | ||||
We now know how to evaluate a triple integral of a function of three variables; we do not yet understand what it means. We build up this understanding in a way very similar to how we have understood integration and double integration.
Let be a continuous function of three variables, defined over some space region . We can partition into rectangular-solid subregions, each with dimensions . Let be some point in the subregion, and consider the product . It is the product of a function value (that’s the part) and a small volume (that’s the part). One of the simplest understanding of this type of product is when describes the density of an object, for then .
We can sum up all products over . Again letting represent the length of the longest diagonal of the rectangular solids in the partition, we can take the limit of the sums of products as . That is, we can find
While this limit has lots of interpretations depending on the function , in the case where describes density, is the total mass of the object described by the region .
We now use the above limit to define the triple integral, give a theorem that relates triple integrals to iterated iteration, followed by the application of triple integrals to find the centers of mass of solid objects.
Let be a continuous function over a closed, bounded space region , and let be any partition of into rectangular solids with volume . The triple integral of over is
The following theorem assures us that the above limit exists for continuous functions and gives us a method of evaluating the limit.
Let be a continuous function over a closed, bounded space region , and let be any partition of into rectangular solids with volume .
The limit exists.
If is defined as the region bounded by the planes and , the cylinders and , and the surfaces and , where , and on , then
We now apply triple integration to find the centers of mass of solid objects.
One may wish to review Section 14.4 for a reminder of the relevant terms and concepts.
Let a solid be represented by a region in space with variable density function .
The mass of the object is .
The moment about the - plane is .
The moment about the - plane is .
The moment about the - plane is .
The center of mass of the object is
Find the mass and center of mass of the solid represented by the space region bounded by the coordinate planes and , shown in Figure 14.6.12, with constant density g/cm. (Note: this space region was used in Example 14.6.2.)
SolutionWe apply Definition 14.6.4. In Example 14.6.2, we found bounds for the order of integration to be , and . We find the mass of the object:
The evaluation of the triple integral is done in Example 14.6.2, so we skipped those steps above. Note how the mass of an object with constant density is simply “densityvolume.”
We now find the moments about the planes.
We omit the steps of integrating to find the other moments.
The center of mass is
Find the center of mass of the solid represented by the region bounded by the planes and and the cylinder , shown in Figure 14.6.13, with density function . (Note: this space region was used in Example 14.6.4.)
SolutionAs we start, consider the density function. It is symmetric about the - plane, and the farther one moves from this plane, the denser the object is. The symmetry indicates that should be 0.
As one moves away from the origin in the or directions, the object becomes less dense, though there is more volume in these regions.
Though none of the integrals needed to compute the center of mass are particularly hard, they do require a number of steps. We emphasize here the importance of knowing how to set up the proper integrals; in complex situations we can appeal to technology for a good approximation, if not the exact answer. We use the order of integration , using the bounds found in Example 14.6.4. (As these are the same for all four triple integrals, we explicitly show the bounds only for .)
Note how , as expected. The center of mass is
As stated before, there are many uses for triple integration beyond finding volume. When describes a rate of change function over some space region , then gives the total change over . Our one specific example of this was computing mass; a density function is simply a “rate of mass change per volume” function. Integrating density gives total mass.
While knowing how to integrate is important, it is arguably much more important to know how to set up integrals. It takes skill to create a formula that describes a desired quantity; modern technology is very useful in evaluating these formulas quickly and accurately.
The strategy for establishing bounds for triple integrals is “ to , to and to .”
Give an informal interpretation of what “” means.
Give two uses of triple integration.
If an object has a constant density and a volume , what is its mass?
In Exercises 5–8, two surfaces and and a region in the , plane are given. Set up and evaluate the double integral that finds the volume between these surfaces over .
In Exercises 9–16, a domain is described by its bounding surfaces, along with a graph. Set up the triple integrals that give the volume of in all 6 orders of integration, and find the volume of by evaluating the indicated triple integral.
In Exercises 17–20, evaluate the triple integral.
In Exercises 21–24, find the center of mass of the solid represented by the indicated space region with density function .