In this explainer, we will learn how to find the arc length and the perimeter of a circular sector using radians and solve problems including real-life situations.
We recall that an arc of a circle is a portion of its circumference between two radii. If we know what proportion of the circumference the arc is, then we can use the length of the circumference of the circle to determine the length of the arc. For example, consider an arc of a quarter of a circle of radius 1.
First, recall that a circle of radius has circumference . This means that the circumference of this circle is .
Next, we know that the arcβs length is of the circleβs circumference. So, length of the arc is
We can see that this arc represents one-quarter of the circle, but it is good practice to see why this is the case. A full turn is an angle of rad, so a rad angle is of the circle. Therefore, the arc will subtend an angle of , and dividing this value by will tell us the proportion of the circle that is the arc.
Hence, the arc length is one-quarter of the circumference:
In general, if the arc subtends an angle of rad, then the proportion of the circle that is the arc is and the circumference of the circle is .
Hence,
We have shown the following result.
Property: Length of an Arc
Length of an arc of a circle of radius that subtends an angle rad is given by
In our first example, we will use the formula for the length of an arc to determine the length of an arc of a circular sector from its radius and central angle.
Example 1: Finding the Arc Length of a Segment
An arc has a measure of radians and a radius of 9. Work out the length of the arc, giving your answer in terms of in its simplest form.
Answer
We first recall that if an arc has a measure of radians, it is the same as saying that it subtends this angle. We can sketch the information given to better understand the question. We have a sector of a circle of radius 9 with a central angle of rad.
We want to determine the length of the arc of this sector. We can do this by recalling that the length of the arc of a circle of radius that subtends an angle of rad is given by .
Substituting and into the formula gives us
Canceling the shared factor of 3 then gives
We cannot simplify this any further. Hence, the length of the arc is .
In our next example, we will use the length of an arc of a circle and the radius of the circle to determine the angle subtended by the arc in radians.
Example 2: Finding the Measure of the Angle of an Arc given Its Arc Length and Radius
An arc of a circle of radius 5 cm has a length of 3.5 cm. Find the angle subtended by the arc in radians.
Answer
We first recall that length of the arc of a circle of radius that subtends an angle of rad is given by . We are told that and that . We can substitute these values into the equation to get
We can solve for by dividing both sides of the equation by 5. We get
In our next example, we will find the radius of an arc using the length of the arc and the measure of the angle subtended by the arc.
Example 3: Finding the Radius of an Arc given Its Arc Length and the Measure of Its Angle
An arc of a circle has a length of 2.7 cm and it subtends and angle of 0.3 rad. Find the radius of the circle.
Answer
We first recall that length of the arc of a circle with radius that subtends an angle of rad is given by . We are told that and that . We can substitute these values into the equation to get
We can then divide both sides of the equation through by 0.3 to find . We get
In our next example, we will use the formula for the arc length to determine the perimeter.
Example 4: Finding the Perimeter of a Shape Using Arc Lengths
Find the perimeter of in the following diagram.
Answer
Letβs start by highlighting on the diagram so that we can see the shape whose perimeter we are asked to calculate.
We can see that consists of two line segments and two arcs of a circle. We know that the perimeter of the shape will be equal to the sum of the lengths of the line segments and and arcs and .
We are given that , and we can find by noting that is a radius of a circle of length 7 cm and that is a radius of a circle of length 3 cm. Therefore,
We can determine the lengths of the arcs by recalling that length of the arc of a circle of radius that subtends an angle of rad is given by . We can find the length of arc by noting sector has radius 3 cm and it subtends an angle of 1.6 rad.
Therefore, we can substitute and into the arc length formula to get
Similarly, we can note that arc is the arc of a circle of radius 7 cm that subtends an angle of measure 1.6 rad.
Thus, we can substitute and into the arc length formula to get
Finally, the sum of these four lengths gives us the perimeter of .
We have
Hence, has a perimeter of 24 cm.
In our final two examples, we will use arc lengths to solve real-world problems.
Example 5: Using Arc Length to Solve a Real-World Problem
The shape of the base of a bottle consists of a line segment of length 5 cm that is connected to the arc of a circle of radius 3 cm as shown.
Find the length of the arc of the circle to one decimal place.
Answer
To determine the length of the arc of the circle, we will use the formula , where is the length of the arc, is the radius of the circle, and is the angle subtended by the arc in radians. We are given that the radius of the circle is 3 cm. However, we are not given the angle subtended by the arc.
We can determine one of the angles at the center of the circle by noting that we have a triangle with three known side lengths.
We can apply the cosine rule to determine the angle at . The cosine rule tells us that
We want to determine the angle at ; we can call this in the diagram and label the side lengths , , and as shown.
We then substitute , , and into the cosine rule to get
Evaluating and simplifying, we have
We can then subtract 18 from both sides of the equation to obtain
We then divide both sides of the equation by , giving us
We can find the value of by taking the inverse cosine of both sides of the equation, where it is important to check that our calculator is set to radians mode. This gives us
We can add this angle onto our original diagram.
There are now two different ways we can determine the arc length of this circle.
The first method we can use is to find the angle subtended by the arc by noting that the two angles at sum to give .
Thus,
We use the exact value of to avoid rounding errors. We can rearrange and solve for :
We can now determine the arc length by substituting and into the arc length formula. We get
Once again, it is important to use the exact value for to avoid rounding too early. We can now round this to one decimal place to reach our solution of .
Letβs now look at the second method. In this method, we will find the length of the arc subtended by the angle of rad.
We substitute and into the arc length formula to get
We can find the circumference of the circle using the formula . Thus,
The length of the major arc in this circle is then the circumference minus the length of the minor arc. We find
We use exact values in these calculations to avoid rounding errors.
Once again, we find that the length of the arc in the diagram is 12.9 cm to one decimal place.
Example 6: Using Arc Length to Solve a Real-World Problem
In soccer, opposing players must stand 10 yd away from the ball during a free kick and the goal is 8 yd wide. A free kick takes place such that the ball is 25 yd away from the goal with angles and points as those shown in the diagram. Point is where the ball lies, points and mark the edges of the goal, and points and mark the points on and that are 10 yd from .
Given that is a sector, Find the perimeter of the shaded region to the nearest yard.
Answer
We can start by noting that the shaded region is bounded by three line segments and the arc of a circle, so the perimeter of the regions is the sum of the lengths of these line segments and the length of the arc.
We are given the lengths of two of the line segments in the question and diagram. We can find the length of the circular arc by recalling that length of the arc of a circle of radius that subtends an angle of rad is given by . We see that the radius of the circle is 10 yd and the arc subtends an angle of 0.3 rad. Substituting these values into the arc length formula yields
To determine the length of the final side of the region, we can note that it is part of a triangle with two known side lengths and a known angle.
We can find the missing side length of the triangle using the cosine rule:
We have , , and . Substituting these values into the cosine rule gives us
Evaluating gives us
We can now take the square roots of both sides of the equation, noting that must be positive, to get
This is the length of the entire side of the triangle. Subtracting 10 yd from this gives yd. We can now add the lengths to the diagram.
Adding all of these lengths gives us the perimeter of the region:
Letβs finish by recapping some of the important points from this explainer.
Key Points
- An arc of a circle of radius that subtends an angle measured in radians has a length of .
- Perimeter of a circular sector that subtends an angle measured in radians is .