Volume Formulas

Volume is the amount of space enclosed by an object. You must have a three-dimensional object in order to find volume.

Your goal is to find out how many cubic units the object can hold inside.

Below you will find several formulas for finding volume.


Volume of a Cube

Since a cube has sides that are all the same size, this is a very easy volume formula to remember. We are going to find the area of the bottom of the cube and multiply by the height.

So, that's length x width x height. Since the length, width and height are all the same dimensions, we can cube the length of the side. Take a look at the example.


Volume of a Rectangular Prism

A rectangular prism is your basic box, that is not a cube. In order to find the volume, we will multiply the length x width x height. These dimensions may all be different, so there is no shortcut for this one!


Volume of a Cylinder

To find the volume of a cylinder, we must find the area of the base and multiply that by the height. Remember that the area of a circle (the base is a circle) is Pi times radius squared.


Other Volume Formulas

The formulas for the following shapes are pretty clear. (To be honest, I am still looking for graphics to be able to show an example! Word does not offer these 3-dimensional shapes!) Click here if you need more help with these formulas.

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