Surface Integrals

It is now time to think about integrating functions over some surface, S, in threedimensional space. Lets start off with a sketch of the surface S since the notation can
get a little confusing once we get into it. Here is a sketch of some surface S.

The region S will lie above (in this case) some region D that lies in the xy-plane. We
used a rectangle here, but it doesnt have to be of course. Also note that we could just
as easily looked at a surface S that was in front of some region D in the yz-plane or
the xz-plane. Do not get so locked into the xy-plane that you cant do problems that
have regions in the other two planes.
Now, how we evaluate the surface integral will depend upon how the surface is given
to us. There are essentially two separate methods here, although as we will see they
are really the same.
First, lets look at the surface integral in which the surface S is given
by

. In this case the surface integral is,

Now, we need to be careful here as both of these look like standard double integrals.
In fact the integral on the right is a standard double integral. The integral on the left
however is a surface integral. The way to tell them apart is by looking at the
differentials. The surface integral will have a dS while the standard double integral
will have a dA.
In order to evaluate a surface integral we will substitute the equation of the surface in
for z in the integrand and then add on the often messy square root. After that the
integral is a standard double integral and by this point we should be able to deal with
that.
Note as well that there are similar formulas for surfaces given by
(with D in the xz-plane) and
(with D in the yz-plane). We will see one of these formulas in the examples and well
leave the other to you to write down.
The second method for evaluating a surface integral is for those surfaces that are
given by the parameterization,

In these cases the surface integral is,

where D is the range of the parameters that trace out the surface S.

Before we work some examples lets notice that since we can parameterize a surface
given by

as,

we can always use this form for these kinds of surfaces as well. In fact it can be
shown that,

for these kinds of surfaces. You might want to verify this for the practice of
computing these cross products.
Lets work some examples.

Example 1 Evaluate
plane

where S is the portion of the

that lies in front of the yz-plane.

Solution
Okay, since we are looking for the portion of the plane that lies in front of the yz-plane we are
going to need to write the equation of the surface in the form
. This is easy enough to do.
Next we need to determine just what D is. Here is a sketch of the surface S.

Here is a sketch of the region D.

Notice that the axes are labeled differently than we are used to seeing in the sketch of D. This
was to keep the sketch consistent with the sketch of the surface. We arrived at the equation of
the hypotenuse by setting x equal to zero in the equation of the plane and solving for z. Here are
the ranges for y and z.

Now, because the surface is not in the form

we cant use
the formula above. However, as noted above we can modify this formula to get one that will
work for us. Here it is,

The changes made to the formula should be the somewhat obvious changes. So, lets do the
integral.

Notice that we plugged in the equation of the plane for the x in the integrand. At this point

weve got a fairly simple double integral to do. Here is that work.

Example 2 Evaluate
where S is the upper half of a sphere of radius 2.
Solution
We gave the parameterization of a sphere in the previous section. Here is the parameterization
for this sphere.

Since we are working on the upper half of the sphere here are the limits on the parameters.

Next, we need to determine

Now lets take the cross product.

. Here are the two individual vectors.

Finally, we need the magnitude of this,

We can drop the absolute value bars in the sine because sine is positive in the range of
we are working with. The surface integral is then,

that

Dont forget that we need to plug in for x, y and/or z in these as well, although in this case we
just needed to plug in z. Here is the evaluation for the double integral.

Example 3 Evaluate

where S is the portion of the

cylinder

that lies between

and

.
Solution
We parameterized up a cylinder in the previous section. Here is the parameterization of this
cylinder.

The ranges of the parameters are,

Now we need

Here is the cross product.

The magnitude of this vector is,

The surface integral is then,

. Here are the two vectors.

Example 4 Evaluate
the cylinder

where S is the surface whose side is

, whose bottom is the disk
in the xy-plane and whose top is the plane

Solution
There is a lot of information that we need to keep track of here. First, we are using pretty much
the same surface (the integrand is different however) as the previous example. However, unlike
the previous example we are putting a top and bottom on the surface this time. Lets first start
out with a sketch of the surface.

Actually we need to be careful here. There is more to this sketch than the actual surface itself.
Were going to let
be the portion of the cylinder that goes from the xy-plane to the plane.
In other words, the top of the cylinder will be at an angle. Well call the portion of the plane that

lies inside (i.e. the cap on the cylinder)

here) is the disk of radius

. Finally, the bottom of the cylinder (not shown

in the xy-plane and is denoted by

In order to do this integral well need to note that just like the standard double integral, if the
surface is split up into pieces we can also split up the surface integral. So, for our example we
will have,

Were going to need to do three integrals here. However, weve done most of the work for the
first one in the previous example so lets start with that.
: The Cylinder
The parameterization of the cylinder and

is,

The difference between this problem and the previous one is the limits on the parameters. Here
they are.

The upper limit for the zs is the plane so we can just plug that in. However, since we are on the
cylinder we know what y is from the parameterization so we will also need to plug that in.
Here is the integral for the cylinder.

: Plane on Top of the Cylinder

In this case we dont need to do any parameterization since it is set up to use the formula that we
gave at the start of this section. Remember that the plane is given by
. Also note that, for this surface, D is the disk of radius

centered at the

origin.
Here is the integral for the plane.

Dont forget that we need to plug in for z! Now at this point we can proceed in one of two ways.
Either we can proceed with the integral or we can recall that
than the area of D and we know that D is the disk of radius
to do the integral.

is nothing more
and so there is no reason

Here is the remainder of the work for this problem.

: Bottom of the Cylinder

Again, this is set up to use the initial formula we gave in this section once we realize that the
equation for the bottom is given by
radius

and D is the disk of

centered at the origin. Also, dont forget to plug in for z.

Here is the work for this integral.

We can now get the value of the integral that we are after.