Very basic physics (mechanics) question

[itzela]

A structural I beam is made of steel. A view of its cross-section and its dimensions are shown in Figure P1.11. The density of steel is 7.56 * 10^3 kg/m^3. What is the mass of the section 8.5 m long?

Figure P1.11 (shown below)




I tried doing this by:
1) changing the 8.5 m into cm... giving me 850 cm.
2) getting the volume by parts: 2[15cm(1cm)(1cm)] + [848cm (1cm)(1cm)]
giving me 878 cm^3.
3) I converted into m^3 and got 8.78*10^-4
4) I used the density and then got a mass of 6.38 kg

But it's a wrong answer... any help would be much appreciated!

 

[Fermat]

I don't understand how you worked out your volume.

Try simply working out the area of the cross-section and multilpying that by the length.

 

[whozum]

What you want to do is find the surface area of the I beam. Then you know the height of the beam is 850m and its area, so you can find the volume by multiplying the two.

The area is (36*15) - (34*14) if I am not mistaken.

 

[quasar987]

how you calculated the volume eludes me. How about 2[15*1*850] + 34*1*850 = 54400 cm^3