Problem

A race track $480 \mathrm{~m}$ long is built around an area that is a rectangle with a semicircle at each end. Find the length of the side of the rectangle adjacent to the track if the area of the rectangle is to be a maximum. The length of the side of the rectangle adjacent to the track that maximizes the area is $\square$ (Type your answer using the appropriate number of significant digits.)

Solution

Step 1 :Denote the width of the rectangle as \(w\) and the radius of each semicircle as \(r\).

Step 2 :The length of the track is \(2w + 2 \pi r = 480\), so \(w + \pi r = 240\).

Step 3 :By AM-GM inequality, we have \(240 = w + \pi r \ge 2 \sqrt{w \pi r}\), which implies that \(\sqrt{w \pi r} \le 120\).

Step 4 :Then \(w \pi r \le 14400\), so \(wr \le \frac{14400}{\pi}\).

Step 5 :The area of the rectangle is \(2wr\), so it must satisfy \(2wr \le \frac{28800}{\pi}\).

Step 6 :Equality occurs when \(w = 120\) and \(r = \frac{120}{\pi}\), so the length of the side of the rectangle adjacent to the track that maximizes the area is \(\boxed{120}\).

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Source: https://solvelyapp.com/problems/2rN694d0QE/

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