Surface area Surface area The surface area of a solid object is a measure of the total area that the surface of the object occupies. The mathematical definition of surface area in the presence of curved surfaces is considerably more involved than the definition of arc length of one-dimensional curves, or of the surface area for polyhedra (i.e., objects with flat polygonal faces), for which the surface area is the sum of the areas of its faces. Smooth surfaces, such as a sphere, are assigned surface area using their representation as parametric surfaces. This definition of surface area is based on methods
Cylinder . The area of the side is known as the "", . An "open cylinder" does not include either top or bottom elements, and therefore has surface area (lateral area) The surface area of the solid right circular cylinder is made up the sum of all three components: top, bottom and side. Its surface area is therefore, where is the diameter of the circular top or bottom. For a given volume, the right circular cylinder with the smallest surface area has . Equivalently, for a given surface area, the right circular cylinder with the largest volume has , that is,