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Concept
Circular segment
Summary
In geometry, a circular segment (symbol: ⌓), also known as a disk segment, is a region of a disk which is "cut off" from the rest of the disk by a secant or a chord. More formally, a circular segment is a region of two-dimensional space that is bounded by a circular arc (of less than π radians by convention) and by the circular chord connecting the endpoints of the arc.
Let R be the radius of the arc which forms part of the perimeter of the segment, θ the central angle subtending the arc in radians, c the chord length, s the arc length, h the sagitta (height) of the segment, d the apothem of the segment, and a the area of the segment.
Usually, chord length and height are given or measured, and sometimes the arc length as part of the perimeter, and the unknowns are area and sometimes arc length. These can't be calculated simply from chord length and height, so two intermediate quantities, the radius and central angle are usually calculated first.
The radius is:
The chord length and height can be back-computed from radius and central angle by:
The chord length is
The sagitta is
The apothem is
The arc length, from the familiar geometry of a circle, is
The area a of the circular segment is equal to the area of the circular sector minus the area of the triangular portion (using the double angle formula to get an equation in terms of ):
In terms of R and h,
In terms of c and h,
What can be stated is that as the central angle gets smaller (or alternately the radius gets larger), the area a rapidly and asymptotically approaches . If , is a substantially good approximation.
If is held constant, and the radius is allowed to vary, then we have
As the central angle approaches π, the area of the segment is converging to the area of a semicircle, , so a good approximation is a delta offset from the latter area:
for h>.75R
As an example, the area is one quarter the circle when θ ~ 2.31 radians (132.3°) corresponding to a height of ~59.6% and a chord length of ~183% of the radius.
Official source
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