Solution: The GCF of 18 and 54 is 18
Methods
How to find the GCF of 18 and 54 using Prime Factorization
One way to find the GCF of 18 and 54 is to compare the prime factorization of each number. To find the prime factorization, you can follow the instructions for each number here:
What are the Factors of 18?
What are the Factors of 54?
Here is the prime factorization of 18:
2
1
×
3
2
2^1 × 3^2
2 1 × 3 2
And this is the prime factorization of 54:
2
1
×
3
3
2^1 × 3^3
2 1 × 3 3
When you compare the prime factorization of these two numbers, you can see that there are matching prime factors. You can now find the Greatest Common Factor of 18 and 54 by multiplying all the matching prime factors to get a GCF of 18 and 54 as 36:
Thus, the GCF of 18 and 54 is: 36
How to Find the GCF of 18 and 54 by Listing All Common Factors
The first step to this method of finding the Greatest Common Factor of 18 and 54 is to find and list all the factors of each number. Again, you can see how this is done by looking at the “Factors of” articles that are linked to above.
Let’s take a look at the factors for each of these numbers, 18 and 54:
Factors of 18: 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 18
Factors of 54: 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 18, 27, 54
When you compare the two lists of factors, you can see that the common factor(s) are 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 18. Since 18 is the largest of these common factors, the GCF of 18 and 54 would be 18.
Find the GCF of Other Number Pairs
Want more practice? Try some of these other GCF problems:
What is the GCF of 122 and 96?
What is the GCF of 137 and 49?
What is the GCF of 79 and 54?
What is the GCF of 19 and 83?
What is the GCF of 143 and 78?