Surface Area & Volume

Well the volume of a sphere is (pi x d), which might also be useful, and basically all you need to do is break up the complex shapes into their smaller pieces. For example, if you had to find the volume of a cube with a cylinder attached, you would first work out:

The volume of the cube.

Then the area of one of the end circles of the cylinder.
Then multiply that by the length of the cylinder to find the volume.
Then add that onto the volume of the cube.

It's really quite simple as long as you break up the tasks into the individual shapes that make them up.

Hope that helps a bit?

I need help with finding the Surface area & volume of shapes my teacher gives me which are really complex.

Their are like rectangular prisms with a cylinder stuck on top and bits cut off and weird combined shapes we have to find the volume and surface area of, some of them even have circles drawn on.

I know the basics:

length x width x height = volume
pi r squared = area of a circle

argh im confused. this is from the 'mathematics for technicians' unit for BTEC level 2 first engineering.