Water is pumped into an empty trough which is $200{\rm{ cm}}$ long at the rate of $33000{\rm{ c}}{{\rm{m}}^3}/s$. The uniform cross section of the trough is an isosceles trapezium with the dimensions shown:
Find the rate at which the depth of the water is increasing at the instant when the depth is 20cm.
I dont know how to even begin to approach this question. If I was to guess.. The question says that the trapezium is 200 cm long and I'm given the cross sectional dimensions of the shape, does this mean I should figure out an expression for the volume of the trapezium? And differentiate this? However I must further connect this to the rate that the water is being pumped into the trapezium.. How do I do that? How do I form an expression for the water flow? Or as the water is already given as a rate all I need to do is find the derivative of the volume and multiply the two? This is all very confusing..
Essentially I'd like an answer that provides a framework of sorts that will allow me to intuitively approach similar problems in the future
Best Answer
Consider that every layer of water in the trough is rectangular, so it has an infinitesimal volume of $dV \ = \ A(y) \ dy $ , with $y$ being the "level" in the trough (you may choose to start from the bottom up or the top down) and $A(y)$ is the surface area. We'll measure from the bottom as $y = 0$ in what follows. The layer at $y = 0$ thus a surface area of $ \ 80 · 200 \ $ sq.cm.
We must consider how the surface area changes as $y$ increases. Since the trapezoid has straight (though inclined) sides, the width increases linearly from $w(y) = 80 \ $cm at $y = 0 \ $cm to $w(y) = 140 \ $cm at $\ y = Y \ $, this being the height of the trough. They were not quite so nice to you here, since they didn't tell you the full depth of the trough, so you will need to use a little trig to find $Y$. Then construct a "width function" $w(y)$ which varies linearly over the range from $y = 0$ to $y = Y$; you can then produce a "surface area function" $A(y) = w(y) \cdot 200 \ $sq.cm.
You will now have a volume function with respect to $y$ that you can use in your related rates problem.
EDIT: In response to your other question, water is entering the trough at the rate $\frac{dV}{dt} = 33,000 \frac{\text{cu.cm.}}{\text{sec}}$ . So find $\frac{dy}{dt}$ at $y = 20$ .