Catenary arch

A catenary arch is a type of architectural arch that follows an inverted catenary curve. The catenary curve has been employed in buildings since ancient times. It is not a parabolic arch, although the non-circumferential curves used in arch designs (parabola, catenary, and weighted catenary) look similar, and match at shallow profiles, so a catenary is often misclassified as a parabola (per Galileo, "the [hanging] chain fits its parabola almost perfectly").

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