Surface Areas and Volume (Cube and Cuboid) 297

Chapter
14
Surface Areas And Volume
(Cube and Cuboid)

14.0 Introduction

Suresh wants to wrap up his gift box. One of his friends suggested to
buy 100 cm2 paper another friend suggested to buy 200 cm2. Whose
suggestion is correct? How would he know that how much paper he has
to buy? 15 cm
20cm
10
It is obvious that size of the paper required depends on the surface area cm
of the gift box .
In order to help ourselves in such situations, let us find the ways of calculating the surface areas
of different solid objects.

14.1 Cuboid

Take a cuboid shaped box made up of thick paper or cardboard for example toothpaste box.
Cut and open it as shown in figure. Observe its shape of the faces. How many sets of identical
faces are found?
l

b II b l b
Toothpaste

h
I III IV V h

b
l l b VI b b

l
Look at the figure, if length ‘l’, breadth ‘b’, height ‘h’ are its dimensions, then you can find three
pairs of identical faces.

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Now we can see that the total surface area of a cuboid is

Area I + Area II + Area III + Area IV + Area V + Area VI
= h l+l b+b h+l h+b h+l b
So total surface area = 2 (h l+b h+b l)
= 2 (lb + bh + hl)
The height, length and the breadth of the gift box are 20cm, 10cm and 15cm respectively.
Then the Total Surface Area(T.S.A)= 2(20 10 + 10 15 + 15 20)
of the box = 2 (200 + 150 + 300)
= 2 (650) = 1300 cm2

Do This

1. Find the total surface area of the following cuboid.

(i) (ii)

2cm
10cm

m
4c
6cm

m
4c
4cm

14.1.2 Lateral Surface Area: Roof

• The lateral faces (the faces excluding the top and

bottom) make the lateral surface area of the
cuboid. For example, the total area of all the four
walls of the cuboidal room in which you are sitting
is the lateral surface area of the room.
h
Hence, the Lateral Surface Area of a cuboid
(L.S.A.) = (l × h) + (b × h) + (l × h) + (b × h)
= 2lh + 2bh l b

= 2h (l + b)
Bottom
 Surface Areas and Volume (Cube and Cuboid) 299

Try These
(i) Take cuboid shaped duster (which your teacher uses in the class room).
Measure its sides with scale and find out its surface area.
(ii) Cover this duster with a graph paper, such that it just fits around the
surface. Count the squares and verify the area you have calculatead.
(ii) Measure length,width and height of your classroom and find
(a) The total surface area of the room, ignoring the area of windows
and doors
(b) The lateral surface area of the room
(c) The total area of the room which is to be white washed.

Think, Discuss and Write

1. Can we say that the total surface area of

cuboid
h h
= lateral surface area + 2 area of base.
2. If we change the position of cuboid from b

(Fig. (i) to Fig. (ii) do the lateral surface b

l
areas become equal? Fig (i)
l
Fig (ii)

3. Draw a figure of cuboid whose dimensions are l, b, h are equal. Derive the formula for
LSA and TSA.

14.2 Cube
Draw the net Fig. (i) given below, on a graph paper and cut it out. Fold it along the lines as
shown in Fig. (i) and joined the edges as shown in Fig(ii) and Fig. (iii). What is the shape of it?
Examine its faces and its dimensions.

Fig (i) Fig (ii) Fig (iii)

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Observe the cube and its net diagram

In the figures (i) and (ii). Do all the faces of a cube are square in shape? Do the length,
height and width of a cube are equal?
l
l
l l
l
l
l

(i) (ii)
(a) How many faces does a cube have ? Are all faces equal?
(b) If each side of the cube is l, what will be the area of each face?
(c) What is the total surface area of the cube.
(d) What is the lateral surface area of cube?

Try These

(i) Find the surface area of cube ‘A’ and lateral surface area of cube ‘B’

8cm
10cm

8cm
10cm 8cm
10cm
A B
(ii) Two cubes each with side ‘b’ are joined to
form a cuboid as shown in the adjacent fig.
What is the total surface area of this cuboid?
b
b b

(iii) How will you arrange 12 cubes of equal lengths to form a cuboid of
smallest surface area?

(iv) The surface area of a cube of 4 4× 4 dimensions is painted. The cube

is cut into 64 equal cubes. How many cubes have (a) 1 face painted?
(b) 2 faces painted? (c) 3 faces painted? (d) no face painted ?
 Surface Areas and Volume (Cube and Cuboid) 301

Example 1: Find the surface area of a cuboid whose length, breadth and height are 15cm,
12cm and 10cm respectively.
Solution: Length of the cuboid (l) = 15cm
Breadth of the cuboid (b) = 12cm
Height of the cuboid (h) = 10cm
Surface area of a cuboid = 2 (lb + bh + hl)
= 2 (15 12 + 12 10 + 10 15) cm2
= 2 (180 + 120 + 150) cm2
= 2 (450) cm2
= 900 cm2
Example 2 : If each edge of a cube is doubled. How many times will its surface area increase?
Solution: Let the edge of the cube be ‘x’
Then edge of the new cube formed =2x
Surface area of the original cube = 6x2
Surface area of the new cube = 6(2x)2 = 6(4x2) = 4(6x2)
when edge is doubled
Surface area of the new cube = 4 Surface area of the original cube
Hence, the surface area of the new cube becomes 4 times that of the original
cube.
Example 3: Two cubes each of edge 6 cm are joined face to face. Find the surface area of
the cuboid thus formed.
Solution: Look at the adjacent figure. Cube has six faces
normally when two equal cubes are placed together,
two side faces are not visible (Why?).

We are left with 12 ! 2 = 10 squared faces = 10 l2 cm2

So, the total surface area of the cuboid = 10 (6)2 cm2
= 10 36 cm2 = 360 cm2

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Alternate Method:
If two cubes of edges 6cm are joined face to face it will take the shape of a cuboid whose length,
breadth and height are (6 + 6) cm, 6cm and 6cm i.e. 12 cm, 6cm and 6cm respectively. Thus,
total surface area of the cuboid
= 2 (lb + bh + lh)
= 2 (12 6+6 6 + 12 6) cm2
= 2 (72 + 36 + 72) cm2
= 2 180 cm2
= 360 cm2

Example 4: Find the cost of painting of the outer surface of a closed box which is 60 cm long,
40 cm broad and 30 cm high at the rate of 50 paise per 20cm2
Solution: Length of the box (l) = 60 cm
Breadth of the box (b) = 40 cm
Hieght of the box (h) = 30 cm
Total surface area of the box = 2 (lb + bh + hl)
= 2 (60 × 40 + 40 × 30 + 60 × 30) cm2
= 2(2400 + 1200 + 1800) cm2
= 2 × 5400 cm2
= 10800 cm2

50
Cost of painting 20 cm2 = 50 paise = `
100

" Cost of painting 1 cm2 = ` 50 1

100 20
50 1
" Cost of painting 10800 cm2 = ` 10,800 = ` 270
100 20
 Surface Areas and Volume (Cube and Cuboid) 303

Exercise -14.1

1. There are two cuboidal boxes as shown in the given figure. Which box requires the less
amount of material to make?
50
50
50
60 40 50
2. Find the side of a cube whose surface area is 600 cm2.
3. Prameela painted the outer surface of a cabinet of measures 1m 2m 1.5m. Find the
surface area she cover if she painted all except the bottom of the cabinet?
4. Find the cost of painting a cuboid of dimensions 20cm × 15 cm × 12 cm at the rate of 5
paisa per square centimeter.

14.3 Volume of Cube and Cuboid

Amount of space occupied by a three dimensional object is called its volume. Try to compare the
volume of objects arround you. For example, volume of a room is greater than the volume of an
almirah kept in the room. Similarly, volume of your
pencil box is greater than the volume of the pen and
the eraser kept inside it. Do you measure volume of
either of these objects?
Remember, we use square units to find the area of a
region. How will we find the volume. Here we will
use cubic units to find the volume of a solid, as cube is
the most convenient solid shape (just as square is the
most convenient shape to measure this area).
To measure the area we divide the area into square units, similarly, to find the volume of a solid
we need to divide the space into cubical units. Unit cube is a cube of unit length . Observe that the
volume of each of the solids which are arranged in different forms are of 8 cubic units (as in Fig
above).
We can say that the volume of a solid is measured by counting the number of unit cubes it
contains. Cubic units which we generally use to measure the volume are
1 cubic cm = 1 cm × 1 cm × 1 cm = 1 cm3
= 10 mm × 10 mm × 10 mm = ____________________ mm3
1 cubic m = 1 m × 1 m × 1 m = 1 m3
= 100 cm × 100cm × 100cm = ____________________ cm3
1 cubic mm = 1 mm × 1 mm × 1 mm = 1 mm3
= 0.1 cm × 0.1 cm × 0.1 cm = ____________________ cm3

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14.3.1 Volume of a Cuboid:

Take 36 cubes of equal size (i.e.,side of each cube is same). Arrange them to form a cuboid. You
can arrange them in many ways. Observe the following table and fill in the blanks.
cuboid length breadth height Total no. of unit cubes
(l) (b) (h) l × b × h = V
1
(i) 12 3 1 12 × 3 × 1 = 36
it s
3 un
12 units

(ii) ... ... ... ...

it s
6 units 3 un
4 units

(iii) ... ... ... ...

9 units

(iv) nit
s ... ... ... ...
6u
6 units

What do you observe? Do you find any relation between the dimensions of the cuboid and its
volume? h
Since we have used 36 cubes to form these cuboids, thus
b
volume of each cuboid is 36 cubic units. This is equal to the l
product of length, breadth and height of the cuboid. From the above example we can say volume
of cuboid = l × b × h. Since l × b is the area of its base we can also say that,
Volume of cuboid = Area of the base × height

Activity

Take a sheet of paper. Measure its area. Pile up

such sheets of paper of same size to make a cuboid
(as in adjacent figure). Measure the height of this h
pile. Find the volume of the cuboid by finding the b
product of the area of the sheet and the height of l
this pile of sheets. Can you find the volume of paper
sheet?
 Surface Areas and Volume (Cube and Cuboid) 305

Do This

Let us find the volume of a cuboid whose length, breadth and height are 6cm., 4cm
and 5cm respectively.

5cm 5cm

4cm 4cm
6cm 6cm

Let place 1 cubic centimeter blocks along the length of the cuboid . How many
blocks can we place along the length? 6 blocks, as the length of the cuboid is 6 cm.
How many blocks can we place along its breadth? 4 blocks, as the breadth of the
cuboid is 4cm. So there are 6 × 4 blocks can be placed in a layer.
How many layers of blocks can be placed in the cuboid? 5 layers, as the height of the
cuboid is 5 cm. Each layer has 6 × 4 blocks. So, all the 5 layers will have 6 4 5
blocks i.e. length × breadth × height.
This discussion leads us to the formula for the volume of a cuboid:
Volume of a Cuboid = length breadth height
a
14.3.2 Vollume of a Cube
A Cube is a cuboid whose length, breadth and height are same, a

So Volume of a cube = side side side

a
= (side)3 = a3
Where a is the side of the cube.
Length of Cube Volume of the Cube
10mm = 1cm 1000 mm3 = 1cm3
10cm = 1dm 1000 c m3 = 1dm3
10dm = 1m 1000 d m3 = 1 m3
100cm = 1m 1000000 c m3 = m3
1000m = 1km 1000000000 m3 = 1km3
Generally, we measure the volumes of liquids in millilitres (ml) or litres (l)

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 306 Mathematics VIII

Further 1 cm3 = 1 ml
1000 cm3 = 1 l
1 m3 = 1000000 cm3 = 1000 l
= 1 kl (kilolitre)
Example 5: Find the volume of a block of wood whose length is 20cm, breadth is 10 cm and
height is 8 cm.
Solution: The block of wood is a cuboid and the volume of a cuboid = l × b × h
Here, length (l) = 20 cm, breath (b) = 10 cm, and height (h) = 8 cm
Volume of the block = 20 cm × 10 cm × 8 cm = 1600 cm3
Example 6: A water tank is 1.4 m long, 1m wide and 0.7m deep. Find the volume of the tank
in litres.
Solution: Length of the tank (l) = 1.4 m = 140 cm
Breadth of the tank (b) = 1 m = 100 cm
Depth of the tank (h) = 0.7 = 70 cm
Volume of the tank = l × b × h
= (140 × 100 × 70) cm3
140 100 70
= litres.
1000
= 980 litres

Do This

Arrange 64 unit cubes in as many ways as you can to form a cuboid. Find the surface
area of each arrangement. Can solid cuboid of same volume have same surface
area?

Do you know
Capacity:
There is not much difference between the two words.i.e volume
and capacity
(a) Volume refers to the amount of space occupied by an object.
(b)Capacity refers to the quantity that a container holds. Capacity
volume
3
If a water tin holds 100 cm of water then the capacity of the water
tin is 100cm3. Capacity can also measure in terms of litres.
 Surface Areas and Volume (Cube and Cuboid) 307

Example 7: Find the volume of a cuboid whose breadth is half of its length and height is
double the length.
Solution: Let the length of the cuboid be x units

x
Then breadth of the cuboid = units
2
And height of the cuboid = 2x units
Volume of the cuboid = length × breadth × height

x
= (x 2x) cubic units
2
= x3 cubic units.
Example 8: A box is 1.8 m long, 90 cm wide, 60 cm height. Soap cakes of measurements
6 cm × 4.5 cm × 40 mm are to be packed in the box, so that no space is left.
Find how many cakes can be packed in each box?
Solution: Length of the box (l) = 1.8 m = 180 cm
Breadth of the box (b) = 90 cm
Height of the box (h) = 60 cm
Volume of the box = l b h
= 180 90 60 cm3
= 972000 cm3
Length of a soap cake = 6 cm
Breadth of a soap cake = 4.5 cm
Height of a soap cake = 40 mm = 4 cm
Volume of one soap cake = 6 4.5 4 cm3
= 108.0 cm3
" Required number of soap cakes
Volume of the box
=
volume of one soapcake

972000
=
108
= 9000
Hence, 9000 soap cakes can be packed in the box.

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Example 9: How many cubes of side 3 cms each can be cut from wooden block in the form
of a cuboid whose length, breadth and height are 21 cm, 9 cm and 8cm
respectively. How much volume of wood is wasted?
Solution: Length of the cuboid (l) = 21 cm
Breadth of the cuboid (b) = 9 cm
Height of the cuboid (h) = 8 cm
Volume of cuboid = 21 × 9 × 8 = 1512 cu cm.
21
No. of cubes that can be cut along the length = =7
3
9
No. of cubes that can be cut along the breadth = =3
3
8
No. of cubes that can be cut along the height = = 2.6
3
Along the height we can cut only 2 pieces and remaining is waste.
" Total number of cubes cut =7×3×2
= 42
Volume of each cube = 3 × 3 × 3 = 27 cm3
Volume of all cubes = 27 × 42
= 1124 cm3
3
" Volume of the waste wood = 1512 – 1124 = 388 cm

Example 10: Water is pouring into a cuboidal reservoir at the rate of 60 litres per minute. If the
volume of reservoir is 108 m3. Find the number of hours it will take to fill the
reservoir.
Solution: Volume of the reservoir = 108 m3 = 108 1000 litres
( 1m3 = 1000 litres)
The reservoir is filling at the rate of 60 litres per minute.

108 1000
" Required time = min.
60

108 1000
= hours = 30 hours.
60 60
 Surface Areas and Volume (Cube and Cuboid) 309

Example 11 : A village having a population of 4000, requires 150 litres water per head per
day. It has a tank measuring 20 m , 15 m , 6 m. How many days for the water is
sufficient enough once the tank is made full.
Solution: Volume of the tank = 20 m 15 m 6m
= 1800 m3 = 1800000 l
Volume of water consumed by 1 person in 1 day = 150 l.
Total volume of water consumed in a day by total population = 150 4000

Volume of the tank

Required number of days =
volume of water consumed in1day

1800000
= = 3 days
150 4000

Exercise - 14.2

1. Find the volume of the cuboid whose dimensions are given below.

Length Breadth Height

(i) 8.2 m 5.3 m 2.6 m
(ii) 5.0 m 4.0 m 3.5 m
(iii) 4.5 m 2.0 m 2.5 m

2. Find the capacity of the tanks with the following internal dimensions. Express the capacity
in cubic meters and litres for each tank.
Length Breadth Depth
(i) 3 m 20 cm 2 m 90 cm 1 m 50 cm
(ii) 2 m 50 cm 1 m 60 cm 1 m 30 cm
(iii) 7 m 30 cm 3 m 60 cm 1 m 40 cm

3. What will happen to the volume of a cube if the length of its edge is reduced to half ? Is
the volume get reduced ? If yes, how much ?

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4. Find the volume of each of the cube whose sides are.

(i) 6.4 cm (ii) 1.3 m (iii) 1.6 m.
5. How many bricks will be required to build a wall of 8 m long, 6m height and 22.5 cm thick,
if each brick measures 25 cm by 11.25 cm by 6 cm?
6. A cuboid is 25 cm long , 15 cm broad, and 8 cm high . How much of its volume will
differ from that of a cube with the edge of 16 cm?
7. A closed box is made up of wood which is 1cm thick .The outer dimensions of the box is
5 cm 4 cm 7 cm. Find the volume of the wood used.
8. How many cubes of edge 4cm, each can be cut out from cuboid whose length, breadth
and height are 20 cm, 18 cm and 16 cm respectively
9. How many cuboids of size 4 cm 3 cm 2 cm can be made from a cuboid of size
12 cm 9 cm 6 cm?
10. A vessel in the shape of a cuboid is 30 cm long and 25 cm wide. What should be its height
to hold 4.5 litres of water?

What we have discussed

1. If l, b, h are the dimensions of cuboid, then:

(i) its lateral surface area is 2h (l + b)
(ii) its total surface area is 2 (lb + bh + hl)
2. Lateral Surface area of a cube is 4a2
3. Total Surface area of a cube is 6a2
4. Volume of a cuboid is l × b × h
5. Volume of a cube is side × side × side = a3
6. 1 cm3 = 1 ml
1l = 1000 cm3
1 m3 = 1000000 cm3 = 1000 l
= 1 kl (kilolitre)