A frustum's axis is that of the original cone or pyramid. A frustum is circular if it has circular bases; it is right if the axis is perpendicular to both bases, and oblique otherwise.
The height of a frustum is the perpendicular distance between the planes of the two bases.
Cones and pyramids can be viewed as degenerate cases of frusta, where one of the cutting planes passes through theapex (so that the corresponding base reduces to a point). The pyramidal frusta are a subclass ofprismatoids.
Two frusta with twocongruent bases joined at these congruent bases make abifrustum.
wherea andb are the base and top side lengths, andh is the height.
The Egyptians knew the correct formula for the volume of such a truncated square pyramid, but no proof of this equation is given in the Moscow papyrus.
Thevolume of a conical or pyramidal frustum is the volume of the solid before slicing its "apex" off, minus the volume of this "apex":
whereB1 andB2 are the base and top areas, andh1 andh2 are the perpendicular heights from the apex to the base and top planes.
Considering that
the formula for the volume can be expressed as the third of the product of this proportionality,, and of thedifference of the cubes of the heightsh1 andh2 only:
By using the identitya3 −b3 = (a −b)(a2 +ab +b2), one gets:
whereh1 −h2 =h is the height of the frustum.
Distributing and substituting from its definition, theHeronian mean of areasB1 andB2 is obtained:
Ziggurats,step pyramids, and certain ancientNative American mounds also form the frustum of one or more pyramids, with additional features such as stairs added.
^The termfrustum comes from Latinfrustum, meaning 'piece' or 'morsel'. The English word is often misspelled asfrustrum, a different Latin word cognate to the English word "frustrate".[1] The confusion between these two words is very old: a warning about them can be found in theAppendix Probi, and the works ofPlautus include a pun on them.[2]