catenary

Its form is that of the catenary curve, the most perfect shape for an arch, and the only one that requires no buttressing from the side.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 27, 2026

Agnoli, who worked as a carpenter prior to entering architecture, used long spans of wood to create massive trusses and spiraling nautilus shapesand formed brick into catenary arches.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2025

“I see the stations, the empty parking spaces, the catenary wires that power the trains, and think surely we should put it to use,” Sound Transit board member Claudia Balducci, of Bellevue, said last week.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 9, 2022

Officials say outside of major projects, the corridor also needs to address basic infrastructure needs, such as improvements to track, signal systems and electric catenary systems that are beyond their useful lives.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 8, 2021

To eliminate any possibility of the trolley wire breaking, a strong steel cable, called a catenary, was slung just above the trolley wire.

From Tom Swift and His Electric Locomotive, or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails by Victor [pseud.] Appleton

Power is often still carried on lines that hang in graceful catenaries of various depths from poles that lean left or right randomly but rarely stand straight.

From New York Times ● Nov. 16, 2012

A relief sculpture by Charles Biederman or the prodigious steel catenaries of Othmar H. Ammann's design for the George Washington Bridge?

From Time Magazine Archive

The catenaries which lie beyond the two generate surfaces whose radius of curvature convex towards the axis in the meridian plane is greater than the radius of concave curvature.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 3 "Capefigue" to "Carneades" by Various

Now let us consider the surfaces of revolution formed by this system of catenaries revolving about the directrix of the two catenaries of equal tension.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 3 "Capefigue" to "Carneades" by Various

Every catenary lying between them has its directrix higher, and every catenary lying beyond them has its directrix lower than that of the two catenaries.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 3 "Capefigue" to "Carneades" by Various