Right-Angled Triangle

Trigonometry and Area

of a Triangle
By: Sachin Ratnam
 1

Primary
Trigonometric
Ratios
 Primary Trigonometric
Ratios
● Relationship between lengths of sides and angles in a right
angle triangle is demonstrated through trigonometric ratios
(sine, cosine and tangent)
● These functions are shown as the following:

Side notes:
● Opposite refers to side length
opposite of angle A, hypotenuse is
always opposite side of 90 degree
angle, adjacent refers to side length
beside angle A
● Simple way to remember primary trig
ratios is acronym SOH CAH TOA
 Key terms
Angle of Elevation (or Inclination): above the horizontal
Angle of Depression (or Declination): below the horizontal
Note: Always measured up or down from the horizontal line
Example
Find the exact values of the three
trigonometric ratios for angle θ in the
triangle below if a = 3, b = 4 and c = 5.
Solution:
 2

Special
Right-angled
Triangles
 Special Right-angled Triangles
● In trigonometry, there are two special types of right triangles that can be easily
memorized by their angles to determine side lengths.
● The two special right-angled triangles are as shown below:
 3

Area of a
Triangle
 Area of a Triangle
Formula to find area of triangle:
Example:

Example of what labeled triangle appears as:

 3

Word
Problem
Time!!
The angle of elevation of the top of the building at a distance of 50
metres from its foot on a horizontal plane is found to be 60°

a) Draw a sketch of the triangle

The angle of elevation of the top of the building at a distance of 50
metres from its foot on a horizontal plane is found to be 60°
b) Find the length of the side AB

Since we are finding length AB, we can use the opposite angle of 60° and the adjacent side of 50m to solve which will plug
into the following equation.

tanθ = Opposite side/Adjacent side

tan60° = AB/BC

√3 = AB/50

√3 x 50 = AB

AB = 50√3

AB = 86.6 m

Therefore the height of the building is 86.6 m.

The angle of elevation of the top of the building at a distance of 50
metres from its foot on a horizontal plane is found to be 60°
c) Assume that this building is connected with another triangular shaped building with
given dimensions of 20m as its base and 18m as its hypotenuse. Draw the new figure.
The angle of elevation of the top of the building at a distance of 50
metres from its foot on a horizontal plane is found to be 60°
d) Find the area of the triangle

To find the area of this triangle, we know that we need to use the formula ½ bh. We use this formula
instead of ½ baSinC because we already determined the height in part b. To find the base, we can
combine the length of the original triangle to the length of the new triangle.

This would be 60m + 40m = 100m.

Then we would plug the length of AB which we found in part b as our height in this case to solve for the
area of this triangle.

A = ½ bh
A = ½ (100)(86.6)
A = 4330m squared

Therefore the area of these connected triangles is 4330 metres squared.

 Sources Of Outside Information!
https://www.georgebrown.ca/sites/default/files/uploadedfiles/tlc/_docum
ents/trigonometric_ratios.pdf

https://www.tfrecipes.com/4-1-right-triangle-trigonometry-word-problem
s/

https://www.onlinemath4all.com/trigonometry-word-problems-with-solut
ions.html?ref=tfrecipes
 I hope you learned something new on
Right-Angled Triangle Trigonometry and
Area of a Triangle! Make sure to apply
these concepts in your math solving
journeys!