Cylindrical

Coordinate System
Representation and Conversions
 Cylindrical system is the three dimensional version of
Polar co-ordinate system. The surfaces used to
define the cylindrical co-ordinate system are,

 Plane of constant Z-plane which is parallel to XY

plane.

 A cylinder of radius ‘r’ with Z-axis as the axis of

the cylinder.

 A half plane perpendicular to XY plane and it

makes an angle ‘ɸ’ with respect to XZ plane.

 The range of variables are,

0 ≤ r ≤ ∞; 0 ≤ ɸ ≤ 2π ; -∞ ≤ z ≤ ∞

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 Representing a point in Cylindrical
coordinate system
• A point P(r,ɸ,z) can be shown as in below fig. The
point ‘P’ as the intersection of these above said
three surfaces and these surfaces are
 (i) r= constant surface
•

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  (ii)ɸ=constant surface

and

(iii) z=constant surface

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• The intersection of any two surfaces out of the above
three surfaces is either a line or a circle and
intersection of three surfaces defines a point ‘P’.
 The intersection of z=constant and r=constant is a
cirlce.
 The intersection of ɸ=constant and r=constant is a
line.The point P which is intersection of all three
surfaces is shown in below fig.

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2019
 Base vectors in Cylindrical Coordinate system:
The base vectors are the unit vectors which are strictly
oriented along the directions of the coordinate axes of
the given coordinate system. The vector of point ‘P’ is,

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Differential Elements in Cylindrical
Co-ordinate System

The differential lengths are,

o Differential length in ‘ r’ direction=dr

o Differential length in ‘ɸ’ direction=rdɸ
o Differential length in ‘z’ direction=dz
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• Differential length vector in cylindrical co-ordinate
system is given by,

 The magnitude of the differential length vector is given

by,

• Differential volume of the differential element is given

by,

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• Differential surface areas in the three directions are
shown in the below fig.

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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CARTESIAN &
CYLINDRICAL SYSTEMS:
 Consider a point ‘P’ whose Cartesian coordinates are
x,y,z while the cylindrical coordinates are r,ɸ and z as
shown in below fig.

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 Looking at the xy plane we can write,

x=r cosɸ and y=r sinɸ

the ‘z’ remains same in both the systems.

 Transformation from Cylindrical point to cartesin

point by using below equations,

 It can be seen that, r can be expressed in terms of

x and y as,

 While ɸ can be expressed in terms of x and y as,

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 Similarly the transformation from Cartesian point to
Cylindrical point can be obtained from the below
equations,

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