Weighted catenary

A weighted catenary (also flattened catenary, was defined by William Rankine as transformed catenary^[1] and thus sometimes called Rankine curve^[2]) is a catenary curve, but of a special form. A "regular" catenary has the equation

${\displaystyle y=a\,\cosh \left({\frac {x}{a}}\right)={\frac {a\left(e^{\frac {x}{a}}+e^{-{\frac {x}{a}}}\right)}{2}}}$

for a given value of a. A weighted catenary has the equation

${\displaystyle y=b\,\cosh \left({\frac {x}{a}}\right)={\frac {b\left(e^{\frac {x}{a}}+e^{-{\frac {x}{a}}}\right)}{2}}}$

and now two constants enter: a and b.