Sarvajanik College of
Engineering & Technology
CALCULAS (2110014)
BRANCH : CIVIL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
(06)
APPLICATION OF PARTIAL DERIVATIVES
Content
 Tangent Plane and Normal Line
 Total Differential (Error Approximations)
Tangent Planes
 Suppose a surface S has equation z=f(x,y) where f has continuous partial
derivatives
 Let P(x0,y0,z0) be a point on S
 Let T1 and T2 be the tangent lines to curves C1 and C2 at the point P
Tangent Plane
 The equation of the tangent plane to the surface Z=f(x,y) at the point P(x0,y0,z0)
is:
Δ(x0,y0,z0)⋅(x−x0 ,y−y0 ,z−z0)=0
Fx (x0,y0,z0) (x-x0)+Fy (x0,y0,z0) (y-y0)+Fz (x0,y0,z0) (z-z0)=0
Normal Line
Normal Line
 The normal line to a curve at a particular point is the line through that point and
perpendicular to the tangent.
 The slope of any line perpendicular to a line perpendicular to a line with slope
m is the negative reciprocal -1/m
 Thus, changing this aspect of the equation for the tangent line, we can say
generally that the equation of the normal line to the graph of f at (x0,f(x0)) is
y-f(x0)=(-1/f’(x0))(x-x0)
Normal Line
 Let f(x,y,z) define a surface that is differentiable at a point (x0,y0,z0), then the
normal line to f(x,y,z) at (x0,y0,z0) is the line with normal vector
f(x0,y0,z0)
that passes through the point (x0,y0,z0). In particular, the equation of the normal
line is
x(t) = x0 + fx(x0,y0,z0)t
y(t) = y0 + fy(x0,y0,z0)t
z(t) = z0 + fz(x0,y0,z0)t
Error and Approximation
 If a result R = R(x,y,z) is calculated from a number of data quantities, x, y and z,
then the relation:
dR = (∂R/ ∂x) dx + (∂R /∂y) dy + (∂R/∂z) dz
This is one of the "chain rules" of calculus. This equation has as many terms as
there are variables.
 Then, if the fractional errors are small, the differentials dR, dx, dy and dz may
be replaced by the absolute errors ΔR, Δx, Δy, and Δz, and written:
ΔR ≈ (∂R/∂x) Δx + (∂R/∂y) Δy + (∂R/∂z) Δz
Error and Approximations
 For the quantity x:
Δx is known as an Absolute Error in x.
Δx/x is known as a Relative Error in x.
(Δx/x)*100 is known as a Percentage Error in x.
Bibliography
http://math.libretexts.org/Core/Calculus/Vector_Calculus/1%3A_Vector_Basics/1.7%3A_Ta
ngent_Planes_and_Normal_Lines
https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/scenario/errorman/calculus.htm
http://math.sci.ccny.cuny.edu/document/show/2213
http://www.maths.manchester.ac.uk/~mprest/Partial-Part%20II-2012.pdf
Thank You

Application of partial derivatives