[Math] Triple Integral bounded by a cylinder and a plane

calculusdefinite integrals

Solve $\iiint{z} dV$

The region is defined as E bounded by $y^2 + z^2 = 4$ and the planes $x = 0$, $y = x$, and $z =0$ in the first octant. So it is a cylinder with radius 2 that goes along the yz plane and is intersected by the plane $y = x$.
Since it is a cylinder, I should use cylindrical coordinates.

For $\theta$:

$ rcos(\theta)=rsin(\theta)$ => $tan(\theta) = 1$ => $\theta = \pi/4$

so $\pi/2<\theta<\pi/4$

For z:

$x^2 + y^2 + z^2 = 4$ => $z = \sqrt{4-r^2}$

so $0<z<\sqrt{4-r^2}$

I am not entirely sure if my r bound is correct, but I said that it should go from $0<r<2$ since the cylinder has a radius of 2.

Anyway, since the z bound is kinda gross, I just plugged it into symbolab and I found out that my answer was wrong. Also this was a practice exam problem, and I obviously cannot use symbolab on my practice exam, so I was wondering if there is a better way to go about doing this problem. Although I am not sure how spherical would work on a cylindrical problem, and the cartesian coordinates are just as nasty.

So TL;DR: Are my bounds correct? Can I do this problem in another, easier way?

Best Answer

I would recommend using rectangular/Cartesian coordinates here. Cylindrical coordinates are going to be a bit of a hassle when we get to working with finding the bounds for $r$ and $\theta$ on the $yz$-plane.

So for this problem, we know that since we're in the first octant, we know that each of $x,y,z$ are nonnegative. You have the right idea of establishing bounds for $z$ here, but remember, the equation that you're given is simply $y^2+z^2=4$, not $x^2+y^2+z^2=4$, so you'll want to use $\sqrt{4-y^2}$ as your upper bound. (so that $0\le z\le \sqrt{4-y^2}$)

For your other two bounds, you'll want to project your given planes as well as your bounds for $z$ onto the $xy$-plane (where $z=0$). From there, since you'll want to have that $\sqrt{4-y^2}$ is nonnegative (or, if you prefer, $y$ must satisfy the equation $y^2+z^2=4$), we have that $-2\le y\le 2$, and since we're working in the first octant, this means we can further restrict our bounds for $y$ to $0\le y\le 2$. With this and your bounds for $x$ as given by the problem statement (so that $0\le x\le y$), we have that we can obtain the following integral: $$\int^2_0\int^y_0\int^{\sqrt{4-y^2}}_0z\text{ }dz\text{ }dx\text{ }dy$$ which, after going through the Calculus, should evaluate to 2.

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