has sides of length . Using , and as centers, portions of circles with radius are drawn outside the hexagon. Using , and as centers, portions of circles with radius are drawn inside the hexagon. These six circular arcs join together to form a curve. Determine the area of the shaded region, both red and green, enclosed by this curve.
In the diagram, regular hexagon
Problem and Image: courtesy waterloo university
This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try
refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and,
finally, (c)
loading the
non-javascript version of this page
. We're sorry about the hassle.
let A = area of the shaded region enclosed by the curve
A H = area of the hexagon
A R = area of the red region
A W = area of the white region inside the hexagon
From the figure, we can see that A = A H − A W + A R .
Solving for the area of the hexagon
A H = 6 ( a r e a o f o n e e q u i l a t e r a l t r i a n g l e )
A H = 6 ( 0 . 5 ) ( 2 2 ) ( 2 3 ) = 6 3
Solving for the area of the white region inside the hexagon
A W = 3 ( 3 6 0 1 2 0 ) ( π ) ( 1 2 ) = π
Solving for the area of the red region
A R = 3 ( 3 6 0 2 4 0 ) ( π ) ( 1 2 ) = 2 π
Solving for the area of the shaded region enclosed by the curve
A = A H − A W + A R
A = 6 3 − π + 2 π = 6 3 + π