Exercises: sin, cos and tan

A dam with a trapezoidal cross-section is to be built $50 m$ long. It is to be $18 m$ wide at the bottom and $8 m$ wide at the top. The angle of slope should be $50 °$ .

Calculate the height of the dam.

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$\tan (α)$	$=$	$\frac{h}{x}$
	↓	Solve for h and plug in the values.
$h$	$=$	$5 m \cdot \tan (50^{\circ})$
	↓	compute
$h$	$=$	$6 m$