## Cylinder/Shell Method – Rotate around a horizontal line

Before reading through this problem, I’d recommend checking out my lesson on finding volumes of rotation using the cylinder shell method. I’m not going to go into quite as much detail here as I did in that lesson. It might help you make more sense of what’s going on if your start there.

Other than that there isn’t much else to add so let’s jump into an example!

## Example 1

Find the area of the solid created by rotating the area bounded between $y= (x-1)^3-3$, $y=-x-2$, and $y=-2$ about the line $y=-1$.

Just as before I’ll use the same 4 step process as in the cylinder method lesson.

### 1. Graph the 2-D functions

As I always say, I suggest starting any problem possible by drawing what is being described to you. Go ahead and start with graphing all of the functions described in the problem. I’ll do this using Desmos. You should end up with something like the graph below. I also went ahead and shaded the bounded region gray to make it a little easier to see (this was not done in Desmos).

### 2. Rotate the 2-D area around the given axis

Again, we want to visualize what the question is asking us to find. We will need to take the shaded region in the above graph and rotate it around the line $y=-1$. Doing this would create a 3-D figure whose volume we’ll need to find. But first let’s draw it.

To do this, imagine the 2-D gray region coming off the paper or screen and rotating around the axis of rotation. Doing this would give us something like the figure below.

### 3. Setting up the integral

I’m not going to go into as much detail to explain where this integral comes from as I did in the cylinder method lesson, but if the following integral confuses you I’d recommend checking that lesson out by clicking on the above link.

Long story short, we want to imagine our 3-D figure is made up of several infinitely thin cylindrical shells. Adding up the volume of all of these shells would result in an integral like this: $$\int 2 \pi r h \ dr.$$

In order to help with coming up with each of these pieces, we need to relate them back to our figure and the functions that created it. In order to visualize this, let’s draw our figure with one of these infinitely thin shells that make up the entire figure. We can consider this one shell and how to represent these dimensions in terms of the given functions.

You can see one of these cylindrical shells represented in the drawing below with a labeled version of the cylinder draw in the upper-right hand corner.

As with all cylinder shell method problems, we need to imagine integrating from the center of the cylinder out to the outer edge. Since our cylinder is laying horizontally, moving from its center to its edge moves up and down. This means we are moving in the y direction. Therefore, we need to integrate in the y direction and represent our integral only in terms of y (we shouldn’t have any x‘s).

So let’s think about each of the three pieces that make up our integral one at a time.

#### Finding r

The radius of this cylinder would simply be the distance between the center of the cylinder and the edge. You can see in the smaller version of the cylinder drawn off to the side that the radius is represented by the red line measuring between the points labeled $(x_2, \ -1)$ and $(x_2, \ y)$.

Since these two points have the same x value, we can find the distance between them by simply finding the distance between their y values. To do this we just need to take the larger value and subtract the smaller one from it. $$r=-1-y$$

#### Finding h

The height of a cylinder will always be measured as the distance between the two flat, parallel faces. Usually they would be the top and bottom, but since our cylinder is sideways, we need the distance between the left side and right side.

Looking at the smaller cylindrical shell off to the side in the drawing above, you can see the height of this cylinder is represented by the red line measuring the distance between the points $(x_1, \ y)$ and $(x_2, \ y)$.

Similar to what we did before, these two points have the same y value. As a result, the distance between them would be the same as the distance between their x values. So we just need to take the larger x value and subtract away the smaller one. $$h=x_2-x_1$$

But remember earlier I said we need everything just in terms of y?

So we need to think about how we can rewrite $x_1$ and $x_2$ in terms of y.

#### Finding $\mathbf{x_1}$$\mathbf{x_1}$

We know that $x_1$ lies on the function $y=-x-2$ so we know that the relationship between $x_1$ and y can be described in the same way $$y=-x_1-2.$$ If we rearrange this to solve for $x_1$ instead of y, we can use this to replace the $\mathbf{x_1}$ in our equation for h. $$y=-x_1-2$$ $$y+x_1=-2$$ $$x_1=-y-2$$

We can use this to rewrite h but replace the $x_1$ with $(-y-2)$ since we know they are equal. $$h= \ x_2- (-y-2)$$ Now we need to do the same thing with $x_2$.

#### Finding $\mathbf{x_2}$$\mathbf{x_2}$

We are going to apply the same idea here as in the previous section. We know that $x_2$ lies on the function $y= (x-1)^3-3$. Therefore, we can describe the relationship between $x_2$ and y as $$y= (x_2-1)^3-3.$$ Now we can solve this equation for $x_2$ and plug this into our equation for h. $$y \ = \ (x_2-1)^3-3$$ $$y+3 \ = \ (x_2-1)^3$$ $$\sqrt[3] {y+3} \ = \ x_2-1$$ $$\sqrt[3] {y+3} +1 \ = \ x_2$$ Now going back to our equation for h, this tells us $$h \ = \ \sqrt[3] {y+3} +1 – (-y-2).$$ And to simplify a bit: $$h \ = \ \sqrt[3] {y+3} +1 + y+2$$ $$h \ = \ \sqrt[3] {y+3} + y+3.$$ Now that we have h and r, we just need to find dr.

#### Finding dr

This is actually the simplest part to find. The dr represents the change in the cylinder’s radius as we go from each shell to the next. Since we move in the same direction of the radius as we integrate to find our volume, the change in r should be the same as the change in y between each step. Therefore, we can say that $$dr=dy.$$

#### Putting it all back into an integral

We already figured out that the volume of our figure can be found by using the integral $$\int 2 \pi rh \ dr.$$ And we just found these three pieces to be $$r=-1-y$$ $$h \ = \ \sqrt[3] {y+3} + y+3$$ $$dr=dy.$$ So we can just plug them into our integral. $$\int 2 \pi \ ( -1-y ) \ \Big( \sqrt[3] {y+3} + y+3 \Big) \ dy$$

Now we need one last piece. We need to add bounds on the integrals.

Since we are integrating with respect to y, the bounds of our integrals need to be the range of y values that make up our original 2-D area. Looking back at our original graph, we can see that the original area bounded by the given functions spans over all of the y values between $y=-2$ and $y=-3$. Therefore, we know that the volume of our figure will be $$V \ = \int_{-3}^{-2} 2 \pi \ ( -1-y ) \ \Big( \sqrt[3] {y+3} + y+3 \Big) \ dy.$$

### 4. Solve the integral

Now all we need to do is solve the integral we just found and that will leave us with our volume. This is actually a pretty complicated integral as is it, so let’s start with simplifying it a bit. We’ll do this by pulling out the constant, distributing out through the parenthesis, and combining like terms.

$$V \ = \int_{-3}^{-2} 2 \pi \ ( -1-y ) \ \Big( \sqrt[3] {y+3} + y+3 \Big) \ dy$$ $$V \ = \ 2 \pi \int_{-3}^{-2} \ – \big(y+3 \big)^{\frac{1}{3}} – y \ – 3 -y \big(y+3 \big)^{\frac{1}{3}} – y^2 – 3y \ \ dy$$ $$V \ = \ 2 \pi \int_{-3}^{-2} \ – \big(y+3 \big)^{\frac{1}{3}} -y \big(y+3 \big)^{\frac{1}{3}} – y^2 – 4y -3 \ \ dy$$

Now that we have it in a form that is simplest to integrate we can go ahead and integrate this function one term at a time. I’m not going to show every step of how to do this, but if you’d like to work it out on your own, I’d suggest using u-substitution on the $-(y+3)^{1/3}$ term and using integration by parts on the $-y(y+3)^{1/3}$ term.

$$V \ = \ 2 \pi \Bigg[ – \frac{3}{14} \big( y+3 \big)^{\frac{4}{3}}\big( 2y-1 \big) – \frac{1}{3}y^3 – 2y^2 – 3y \Bigg]_{-3}^{-2}$$

Again, I’m not going to show every step of this. Instead I used Wolfram Alpha from here, but if you evaluate this expression from $y=-3$ to $y=-2$, you’ll see that $$V \ = \ 2 \pi \bigg(\frac{73}{42} \bigg)$$ $$V \ = \ \frac{73 \pi}{21}$$

Hopefully all of this helps you gain a bit of a better understanding of this method, but as always I’d love to hear your questions if you have any. Just email me at jakesmathlessons@gmail.com and I’ll see if I can help provide a bit more clarification. You can also use the form below to subscribe to my email list and I’ll send you my bonus FREE calc 1 study guide! Just put in your name and email address and I’ll be sure to let you know when I post new content! Feel free to go check out my other lessons and solutions about integrals as well.

## Rotating Volumes with the Cylinder/Shell Method

Similar to using the disk or washer method, we will use the cylinder method to find the volume of a solid. Specifically, it’s used when we rotate a function or region around an axis of rotation. In fact, most problems that require finding the volume of a solid of rotation can use the disk/washer method or the cylinder method. However, one will usually be significantly easier.

I’ll explain what I mean by this with an example.

## Example 1

Find the volume of the solid resulting from rotating the area bound between $y=x^2-2x+2$, $y=0$, $x=1$, and $x=2$ about the y-axis.

Although we are using a different method here we will follow the same 4 step process as I did with the disk method and washer method.

### 1. Graph the 2-D functions

This is generally a good idea with any type of problem: draw out whatever is being described in the problem. This helps to visualize whats going on in the problem and what exactly we are trying to measure. It can also help us decide if the answer we end up with is actually a reasonable one.

I would recommend trying to graph all of the functions listed by hand, but I’ll do this using Desmos. You can see the graph of the functions below with the bounded region shaded gray.

### 2. Rotate the 2-D area around the given axis

Again, we want to visualize the 3-D figure whose volume we are trying to find. To do this we want to imagine rotating the described area around the axis of rotation.

I like to imagine the area actually coming off the page and rotating around our axis of rotation, which is the y-axis in this case. Doing this would create a cylinder-like, round figure. Try sketching this rotation and the resulting figure. It may be helpful in the next step to have this sketch.

If needed, Wolfram Alpha can always be used to create a visualization of this figure.

### 3. Setting up the integral

This is the part where things start to get a bit different using the cylinder method than they were with the disk/washer method.

In order to make sense of the integral we need to set up here, let’s think about what we’re doing differently. With the disk/washer methods we were stacking many very thin disks on top of each other with the same thickness and varying radii to create our figure. This created a stack of cylinders whose volume we could find and add together.

The cylinder shell method is a bit different. Here we need to imagine just the outer shell of a cylinder that is very very very thin. We will stack many of these very thin shells inside of each other to create our figure. Each shell will have the same thickness, but all with different heights depending on where it is in the figure.

What we need to figure out is a formula for the volume of one of these shells, then the integral will be able to go through each shell and add up all of their volumes.

#### What would this look like?

Before we think about creating a function that we will need to integrate I want to take a moment to describe what one of these shells would look like. Imagine forming the outer shell of a cylinder with a piece of paper. All you would need to do is roll up the paper and it would create a cylinder shell. But what’s interesting about this is the cylinder shell came from a rectangle, or more accurately a very very thin rectangular prism. It might look something like this.

Since we are imagining finding the volume of an infinitely thin cylinder, these three figures would have the same volume. The fact that they’re infinitely thin means that the curvature won’t impact the volume of the shell. So to find the volume of the cylindrical shell, we can instead find the volume of a rectangular prism with the same dimensions. This is a much easier exercise to imagine since the volume of a rectangular prism is simply $$V= \ length \cdot width \cdot height.$$

#### But how does this relate to the cylinder?

What we need to think about now is how the dimensions of the rectangular prism translate to dimensions on the cylindrical shell. Looking back up to the drawing above, if you imagine the rectangle curling into a cylinder you can see the long side of the rectangle bends into the top and bottom of the cylinder. This would be the circumference of the cylinder.

In the above drawing we can also see that the shorter side of the rectangle lines up nicely with the height of the cylinder.

And lastly, the very very very thin thickness of the shell and the rectangular prism would clearly correspond with each other.

So as a result, the $$V= \ length \cdot width \cdot height$$ of the rectangular prism would be the same as $$V = circumference \cdot thickness \cdot height$$ for the cylindrical shell.

#### Putting it into an integral

Now that we know how to find the volume of each shell we need to come up with a way to put that into an integral. The reason for this is that the integral adds up the volume of all of the shells that make up the figure to find the total volume.

In order to do this, we will need to think about the formula for the volume in terms of measurments of the cylinders. We know the three pieces we need to find the volume of one of the shells are the circumference, thickness, and height of the cylinders. Typically when we describe a cylinder, we need two measurements to do this: height and radius. So we want to represent the circumference, thickness, and height in terms of height and radius.

First let’s think about the circumference. We know that the circumference of a circle is always going to be $$circumference=2 \pi r$$ where r is the radius.

The thickness of each shell is a bit strange. As we go from one shell to the next throughout the integral we want to think about what is changing. When we are doing this, we will always want to think about integrating throughout the radius. It’s as if we are starting at the center of the figure and integrating in the direction toward the edge of the figure. So when we go from one shell to the next we travel throughout the radius. Therefore, the thickness of each cylindrical shell with be the distance we travel between each shell. This will just be the change in radius between each shell. Therefore we’ll say the the thickness is $$thickness = dr.$$

Lastly, the height will still be described as the height. We don’t really need to do anything here.

Therefore, using these three conversions we know that the volume of the whole figure can be found with the following integral. $$\int 2 \pi r h \ dr$$

#### Relating it back to our figure

So we have a general outline to set up our integral, but now we need to figure out how our figure fits into these pieces. The easiest way to do this is draw it out with one of the cylindrical shells that makes up our 3-D figure.

So remember earlier I said that when we use this method to find the volume, we are integrating in the direction of the radius of the cylinders. We can see in our drawing that if we start in the center of our cylinder and move toward the edge, we would be going in the x direction. Therefore, we need to think about how to represent our integral in terms of x so we can integrate with respect to x.

So we have 3 pieces of our integral that we need to put in terms of x: r, h, and dr.

#### Finding r

You can see in the drawing above I drew an example of one of the cylindrical shells within our figure. There is also a smaller version of this shell in the upper left hand corner which has a few points labeled which will lie on the various functions that created our bounded region.

We can see the radius of our cylinder would be the distance between its center and edge, which is the distance between the two points labeled $(0, \ y)$ and $(x, \ y)$. The x-coordinate of that first point will always be 0 because that point lies on the y-axis. And $(x, y)$ is some point that lies on the function $y=x^2-2x+2$. Since these points have the same y value, the distance between them will just be the distance between their x values. So $$r=x-0$$ $$r=x.$$

#### Finding h

Looking at the labeled cylindrical shell in the drawing above, we can see that the height of the cylinder will be the distance between the points labeled $(x, \ y)$ and $(x, \ 0)$. Again, $(x, \ y)$ is some point on the function $y=x^2-2x+2$. And the y-coordinate of that second point will always be 0 because it sits on the x-axis.

It is also important to notice that these two points will sit on the top and bottom edges of every single shell that makes up this figure. This will be true for the inner most shell, the outer most shell, and every shell between them.

Since these these two points have the same x value, the distance between them will simply be the distance between their y values. So $$h=y-0$$ $$h=y$$

But remember we need everything in terms of x, not y. So we need to think about how to represent this height using x instead. Since our y is just the y-coordinate of some point that lies on the function $y=x^2-2x+2$, we can replace the y with $x^2-2x+2$. So $$h=x^2-2x+2.$$

#### Finding dr

This is actually the simplest part to find. The dr represents the change in the cylinder’s radius as we go from each shell to the next. Since we move in the same direction of the radius as we integrate to find our volume, the change in r should be the same as the change in x between each step. Therefore, we can say that $$dr=dx.$$

#### Putting it all back into an integral

We know that the volume of our figure can be found by using the integral $$\int 2 \pi r h \ dr.$$ And we just found how to represent all of these pieces in terms of x by $$r=x$$ $$h=x^2-2x+2$$ $$dr=dx.$$ So we can substitute all of these pieces into the integral and get something in terms of x that will tell us exactly how to find the volume of our figure. $$V=\int 2 \pi x \big( x^2-2x+2 \big) \ dx$$

But there is actually one more thing we need to consider. Our integral needs bounds. Since we are integrating with respect to x we need to figure out all the x values we want to consider when finding our volume.

To do this we just need to look at the original 2-D region we had bounded by all of our functions. Looking back at our drawings we can see that the entire region goes from $x=1$ to $x=2$. Therefore, these will be our bounds, telling us that $$V=\int_1^2 2 \pi x \big( x^2-2x+2 \big) \ dx.$$

### 4. Solve the integral

Now that we got our integral set up, all we need to go is evaluate the integral and find the volume it represents.

Before doing that I will simplify things a bit by pulling out the constant $2 \pi$ and then simplifying the function by distributing.

$$V=\int_1^2 2 \pi x \big( x^2-2x+2 \big) \ dx$$ $$V=2 \pi \int_1^2 x^3-2x^2+2x \ dx$$ $$V=2 \pi \Bigg[ \frac{1}{4}x^4 – \frac{2}{3}x^3+ x^2 \Bigg]_1^2$$ $$V=2 \pi \Bigg[ \bigg( \frac{1}{4}(2)^4 – \frac{2}{3}(2)^3+ (2)^2 \bigg) \ – \ \bigg( \frac{1}{4}(1)^4 – \frac{2}{3}(1)^3+ (1)^2 \bigg) \Bigg]$$ $$V=2 \pi \Bigg[ \bigg( 4 – \frac{16}{3}+ 4 \bigg) \ – \ \bigg( \frac{1}{4} – \frac{2}{3} + 1 \bigg) \Bigg]$$ $$V=2 \pi \bigg[ \frac{8}{3} – \frac{7}{12} \bigg]$$ $$V=2 \pi \bigg[ \frac{25}{12} \bigg]$$ $$V= \frac{25 \pi}{6}$$

And that’s it! The volume of our 3-D figure is $\frac{25 \pi}{6}$ cubic units.

I do quickly want to circle back to a comment I made a while ago. We could have found this volume using the washer method. However, we would have had to split it into two separate integrals to do so. The reason for this is that the inner radius of the washers on the lower half of the figure is formed by $x=1$. But the inner radius of the washers on the upper half of our figure is formed by $y=x^2-2x+2$. So we’d have to set up one integral for the lower half and another for the upper half, then add the resulting volumes to find the total volume of our figure.

Clearly using the cylindrical shell method is much easier in this case.

If you want more practice on finding volumes of rotation using the shell method, you can find another example here.

Hopefully all of this helps you gain a bit of a better understanding of this method, but as always I’d love to hear your questions if you have any. Just email me at jakesmathlessons@gmail.com and I’ll see if I can help provide a bit more clarification. You can also use the form below to subscribe to my email list and I’ll send you my FREE calc 1 study guide! Just put in your name and email address and I’ll be sure to let you know when I post new content! Feel free to go check out my other lessons and solutions about integrals as well.

## Rotating Volumes with the Disk Method

Rotating functions around an axis to create a 3-D shape then finding its volume is one of the more common applications of integrals. This is commonly referred to as finding a volume using the disk method. It seems like a complicated type of problem, but if you think about what you are actually measuring it isn’t so bad.

Let’s think about a specific example. Imagine taking the function $y=x^2$ between $x=0$ and $x=2$ and rotating it around the x-axis then finding the volume of this solid using the disk method.

## 1. Graph the 2-D function

The first thing I would recommend doing with a problem like this is to graph the function that’s given to you. Here we are graphing $y=x^2$ within our given domain of $0 \leq x \leq 2$. Using Wolfram Alpha we can see this graph below.

## 2. Rotate the 2-D function around the given axis

Once you graph the function on the 2-D x-y-plane we need to imagine rotating it around the axis given in the problem. This will result in creating a 3-D figure whose volume we need to find.

In this case we need to rotate this portion of our function around the x-axis. Another way to say this is that we are rotating around the line $y=0$. Again, using Wolfram Alpha we can see what this figure would look like.

I would always recommend drawing out the 2-D graph and 3-D rotation anytime you need to find the volume of a solid like this. It helps to visualize the solid whose volume you are trying to measure and it makes it much easier to make sure you are setting up your problem correctly.

## 3. Setting up the integral

As with any problem where we need to find a volume using the disk method, what we want to imagine here is having infinitely thin cylinders stacking up to create our 3-D figure. When we add up the volumes of all of these infinitely thin cylinders, get the volume of the entire figure. This is all the integral is doing.

You can see in this drawing our function has been rotated around the x-axis to create a round cone-like 3-D figure. The green cylinder in the figure represents one of the infinitely thin disks that we are slicing the figure into.

Since we are trying to make this integral represent the sum of all of these disks, we need to think about the volume of each disk in particular. Clearly each disk is a very thin cylinder. So in order to find their volumes, we should start with the volume of a cylinder, which is

$$V=\pi r^2 h.$$

Thinking back to our example of rotating $y=x^2$ around the x-axis, let’s determine the radius and height of our cylinders.

### How do we find the radius?

Considering that each cylinder will be a different size, it seems clear that the radius of each cylinder will depend on which cylinder we’re considering. In fact, if you look at our drawing, you can see that the radius of each cylinder will simply depend on the x value where it’s sitting.

You can see in the drawing above that I drew a copy of the disk we are considering down below the function. Imagine we are trying to find the distance between the two points we labeled. The center point of our disk is labeled (x, 0). We know that the center of our disk will always have a y-coordinate of 0 because we rotated our function around the line $\mathbf{y=0}$. And we will leave the x-coordinate as the variable x because we are trying to find the volume of any disk along this figure with all different x values, not just the one disk drawn above.

Now consider the upper point. This point is labeled (x, y). This is just meant to be any (x, y) combination that sits on our function $y=x^2$. This point will always have the same x-value as our other labeled point, so the distance between these two points will simply be the distance between their y-coordinates, which are y and 0. To find the distance between these two values, we just need to do the larger value minus the smaller one, or $y-0$, which is just y.

But we need this to be in terms of x. Remember we realized earlier that the radius of our disk will depend on x, so we want everything in terms of x. We know that our point (x, y) we were looking at is some point that lies on our function. So we know $\mathbf{y=x^2}$. Therefore, if the radius of our disk is y, we can also say that the radius is $x^2$. So,

$$r=x^2.$$

### How do we find the height?

The height of our infinitely thin cylinders is actually quite simple. Just like when we integrate a 2-D function to find the area under the curve, our slices here are all the same width. We don’t have to worry about each disk, or cylinder, having a different height.

The height of each cylinder will just be how far we always move over before taking another slice. Since we are moving over in the x direction as we imagine the next slice, this can simply be our change in x between the slices. Change in x is always represented as dx. So we can simply say the height of each cylinder is

$$h=dx.$$

If we were instead rotating our function around a vertical line (like $x=0$) the height of our disks would be dy. This is only if we are using the disk method and would not necessarily be the case when using the shell method.

### Back to the integral

Now we got our height and radius of each disk we get from slicing this figure. Putting this together, we can say that the volume of a single disk can be represented as

$$V=\pi \big( x^2 \big)^2dx.$$

But this of course is just one disk. We need to add up the volume of all of the disks to get the volume of the full figure. This is exactly what the integral accomplishes. Before doing this, remember we are only rotating this function between $x=0$ and $x=2$. So these will be the bounds of our integral. Therefore, the volume of our entire figure can be found with the following integral.

$$\int_0^2 \pi \big( x^2 \big)^2dx$$

## 4. Solve the integral

We made it through the hard part! Now all we need to do is solve this integral and we will have the volume of our figure. First let’s simplify this integral a little, then we can integrate using the power rule and evaluate at the given bounds.

$$\int_0^2 \pi \big( x^2 \big)^2dx$$

$$\pi \int_0^2 x^4 dx$$

$$\pi \Bigg[ \frac{1}{5} x^5 \Bigg]^2_0$$

$$\frac{\pi}{5} \Big[ (2)^5 – (0)^5 \Big]$$

$$\frac{\pi}{5} \Big[ 32 \Big]$$

$$\frac{32 \pi}{5}$$

So we found that the volume of the solid is $\frac{32 \pi}{5}$! Hopefully this has helped you with the disk method, but if there’s still a topic you’d like to learn about take a look at some of my other lessons and problem solutions about integrals. Once you know and understand the disk method, another good application of integrals to check out would be the washer method. If you can’t find the topic or question you’re looking for just let me know by emailing me at jakesmathlessons@gmail.com!

I also encourage you to join my email list! Just enter your name and email below and I’ll send you my free calculus 1 study guide as a bonus for joining me!