Surface area of a giant cup

markretzloff

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Sep 13, 2016
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Hello,

I'm trying to figure out the surface area of a giant water glass. See attached image. The glass has a diameter at the top of 5.5 ft and at the bottom of 4.25 ft with a total height of 8 ft. I am designing square cards that will stick on the sidewalls of the glass and need to figure out what size to make the cards. I would like to have 1500 cards in total on the glass.

(if your curious what this is for, it's a giant interactive art piece/infographics designed to help raise funds for the 600+ million people in the world that lack access to safe water)

Hoping the gods of math here can help.

Thank you!

attachment.php
 

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Is it just the external curved surface area you are tiling (ie not the inside or the base)?
 
Hello,

I'm trying to figure out the surface area of a giant water glass. See attached image. The glass has a diameter at the top of 5.5 ft and at the bottom of 4.25 ft with a total height of 8 ft. I am designing square cards that will stick on the sidewalls of the glass and need to figure out what size to make the cards. I would like to have 1500 cards in total on the glass.

(if your curious what this is for, it's a giant interactive art piece/infographics designed to help raise funds for the 600+ million people in the world that lack access to safe water)

Hoping the gods of math here can help.

Thank you!

attachment.php

Have a look here. This calculates the external curved surface together with the top circle and bottom circle.

You will need to subtract the areas of the two circles to get just the curved area. Remember Area of circle = pi * r^2.

(I got approx 123 square feet but you might want to check that!)

EDIT: Sorry, here's the link http://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/geometry-solids/surfacearea.php
 
Last edited:
Have a look here. This calculates the external curved surface together with the top circle and bottom circle.

You will need to subtract the areas of the two circles to get just the curved area. Remember Area of circle = pi * r^2.

(I got approx 123 square feet but you might want to check that!)

Super. To answer your first question, we'll be tiling just the outside of the cup walls – so not the top or bottom or inside walls.

So so if I want to use 1500 tiles, what size should the tiles be?
 
Look out.

This is cut cone. Imagine this as cone with cut off spikey part. You can count it's cubity by substracting volume smaller cone from bigger.
 
This is cut cone. Imagine this as cone with cut off spikey part. You can count it's cubity by substracting volume smaller cone from bigger.

But OP needs the surface area - not volume!!
 
Note: We can help only with the "ideal" mathematical answers. In "real life", one will have to account for the fact that the tiles (likely) won't be put directly onto the surface, but will instead be placed into a layer of mortar. Also, allowances will need to be made for the between-tile spacing for grout, and one would need to account for the lack of curvature of the tiles.

If this is a math exercise, please provide the rest of the information (such as the assumptions you're supposed to make). Otherwise, for a "good" answer, please consider hiring a qualified contractor. Thank you! ;)
 
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