Sunday, June 23, 2013

sector and segment of circle

Circle Sector and Segment

A circular sector or circle sector (symbol: ), is the portion of a disk enclosed by two radii and an arc, where the smaller area is known as the minor sector and the larger being the major sector. In the diagram, θ is the central angle in radians, r the radius of the circle, and L is the arc length of the minor sector.
A sector with the central angle of 180° is called a semicircle. Sectors with other central angles are sometimes given special names, these include quadrants (90°), sextants (60°) and octants (45°).
The angle formed by connecting the endpoints of the arc to any point on the circumference that is not in the sector is equal to half the central angle.

n geometry, a circular segment (symbol: ) is an area of a circle informally defined as an area which is "cut off" from the rest of the circle by a secant or a chord. The circle segment constitutes the part between the secant and an arc, excluding of the circle's center.



Contents



Slices

There are two main "slices" of a circle:
  • The "pizza" slice is called a Sector.
  • And the slice made by a chord is called a Segment.

Try Them!

Sector Segment

Common Sectors

The Quadrant and Semicircle are two special types of Sector:
Quarter of a circle is called a Quadrant.

Half a circle is called a Semicircle.

 

Area of a Sector

You can work out the Area of a Sector by comparing its angle to the angle of a full circle.
Note: I am using radians for the angles.
circular sector area
This is the reasoning:
  • A circle has an angle of 2π and an Area of: πr2
  • So a Sector with an angle of θ (instead of 2π) must have an area of: (θ/2π) × πr2
  • Which can be simplified to: (θ/2) × r2
Area of Sector = ½ × θ × r2   (when θ is in radians)
Area of Sector = ½ × (θ × π/180) × r2   (when θ is in degrees)

circular sector arc length

Arc Length

By the same reasoning, the arc length (of a Sector or Segment) is:
L = θ × r   (when θ is in radians)
L = (θ × π/180) × r   (when θ is in degrees)

Area of Segment

The Area of a Segment is the area of a sector minus the triangular piece (shown in light blue here).
There is a lengthy reason, but the result is a slight modification of the Sector formula:
circular segment area
Area of Segment = ½ × (θ - sin θ) × r2   (when θ is in radians)
Area of Segment = ½ × ( (θ × π/180) - sin θ) × r2   (when θ is in degrees)

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