How do you use the shell method to set up and evaluate the integral that gives the volume of the solid generated by revolving the plane region x=yy2 and the y axis rotated about the y axis?

1 Answer
Oct 25, 2015

See the explanation section, below.

Explanation:

Here is a picture of the region. Because we have been asked to ue shells, a representative slice has been taken parallel to the axis of revolution. This make the thickness of our slice dx

enter image source here

The volume of the representative shell is:

2π×radius×height×thickness

As mentioned, thickness=dx
and we can see that radius=x

The height will be the greater y value minus the lesser y value. We are working in terms of x, so we need to write these two y values as functions of x.

We need to solve x=yy2 for y (in terms of x).

There are a couple of ways of doing this. (1) complete the square or (2) use the quadratic formula to solve y2y+x=0 for y.
(There are other ways as well. For example, you can use the vertex formula to write the equation in standard form for a sideways opening parabola.)

I'll complete the square.

y2y=x

y2y+14=14x

(y12)2=14x4

y12=±14x4

y=12±14x2=1±14x2

(Yes, this is the same as the answer you'll get by using the quadratic formula.)

The greater y (the one on top) is
ytop=1+14x2

and the lesser y (the one on the bottom) is
ybottom=114x2

So, finally, we can write the volume of the representative cylindrical shell:

2π×radius×height×thickness=2πx(1+14x2114x2)dx

Don't Panic. We can simplify this to get

2πx14xdx

We still haven't found the bounds on x.

In the region we have 0x, and, examining the solution for y, we see that if x>14 we'll get imaginary values for y. So, we get x varies from 0 to 14.

The volume of the solid of interest is

V=1402πx14xdx

Which can be evaluated by parts or by the substitution u=14x so that du=4dx and x=14(1u).