Depending on where you live, these grain silos can be a pretty familiar sight. Silos are used to store the excess grain harvested from the fields and are especially popular in more agricultural areas.
For this problem, students will be tasked with finding the amount of grain in a silo given the measurements and the percentage of the silo that is full. This problem can be easy – simply finding the max volume of the structure given the heights and radii – or it can be made more difficult – finding the amount grain if the silo is only partially full or even comparing the volumes of multiple silos using the concept of similarity. The picture provides a visual representation of what the silos actually look like, making it easier for students to see the silo as two cones and a cylinder and not just a single structure.
Use volume formulas for cylinders, pyramids, cones, and spheres to solve problems.*