[Math] Overlapping area between a circle and a square

areacirclesgeometrypolygons

I have a circle and a square. They are aligned to their center. The radius of the given circle is less then half the value of diameter of the square.

How to find the overlapped area?

Best Answer

Let $r$ be the radius of the circle and $a$ be half the length of a side of the square.

If $r \leq a$ then the overlapping area is the area of the whole circle $\pi r^2$.

If $r \geq a \sqrt{2}$ then the overlapping area is the area of the whole square $a^2$.

Now to the more interesting case where $a < r < a\sqrt{2}$. enter image description here

Exploiting the symmetry of the problem we divide the plane to 8 parts as shown in the picture, so that the overlapping area is 8 times the colored area.

Let $\theta = \arccos(a/r)$ the angle shown in the picture. The blue area is a circular sector of angle $\frac{\pi}{4}-\theta$ so its area equals $(\frac{\pi}{4}-\theta)\frac{r^2}{2}$. The red triangle has area $\frac{1}{2}ar\sin\theta$.

Putting all these together, the total overlapping area is $(\pi-4\theta)r^2+4ar\sin\theta$.

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