What is a rectangular prism?
A right rectangular prism is a box-shaped object, that is, a 3-dimensional solid which has six rectangular faces. Rectangular prisms can also be oblique - leaning to one side - but the side faces are parallelograms, not rectangles. A right rectangular prism is also called a cuboid, box, or rectangular hexahedron. Moreover, "rectangular prism" and "right rectangular prism" are often used interchangeably.
The most common math problems related to this solid are of the type right rectangular prism calc find V or find A, where the letters stand for the Volume and Area, respectively. Let's see the necessary rectangular prism formula and learn how to solve those problems quickly and easily.
How do I find the volume of a rectangular prism?
The rectangular prism volume formula is:
volume = h × w × l,
where h is prism height, w is its width, and l is its length. To calculate the volume of a cardboard box:
Find the box length. For example, it can be equal to 18 in.
Determine its width. Let's say you measured 12 in.
Find out the rectangular prism height. Assume it's 15 in.
Calculate the cuboid volume. Using the rectangular prism volume formula above, we get volume = (18 × 12 × 15) in = 3240 in³.
How do I find the area of a rectangular prism?
The surface area of the cuboid consists of 6 faces - three pairs of parallel rectangles. To find the rectangular prism surface area, add the areas of all faces:
surface_area = 2 × (h × w) + 2 × (h × l) + 2 × (l × w) = 2 × (h × w + h × l + l × w),
where h is prism height, w is its width, and l is its length.
Let's see an example of how to solve the right rectangular prism calc - find A problem. We'll come back to our example with the box and calculate its surface area:
Calculate the rectangular prism surface area. First rectangle area is 15in × 12in = 180in², second 15in × 18in = 270in² and third one 18in × 12in = 216in². Add all three rectangles' areas - it's equal to 666 in² (what a number!) - and finally multiply by 2. The surface area of our cardboard box is 1332in².
Or save yourself some time and use our rectangular prism calculator.
Finally, let's attack the right rectangular prism calc find d (that is, the diagonal) type of problem.
How do I calculate the diagonal of a rectangular prism?
To determine the diagonal of a rectangular prism, apply the formula:
diagonal = √(l² + h² + w²)
where h is prism height, w is its width, and l is its length.
Do you have the feeling that you saw the formula before? Yes, that's possible because this equation resembles the famous one from the Pythagorean theorem.
How to calculate volumes of the other solids?
That rectangular prism was a piece of cake! If you are amazed at how easily you can calculate the volume with our tool, try out the other volume calculators:
triangular prism calculator
cylinder volume calculator
sphere volume calculator
cone volume calculator
pyramid volume calculator