Mechanics of Static Catenary with Current Loading

The catenary has been customarily applied to the determination of various parameters pertinent to the static anchor chain. However, the catenary solution takes into account only the vertical loading on the chain. Attempts to include the in‐plane horizontal loading have been reported by Pode and Wilson, who had both come up with tabulated cable functions for the respective cases of constant and variable tangential drag induced by uniform currents. In the present paper, it is shown that a closed‐form solution can be derived under the assumption of uniform vertical and in‐plane horizontal load intensities per unit cable length. When the horizontal loading is suppressed, the present solution reverts back to that of the catenary. On the other hand, when the vertical loading is suppressed, this reduces to the solution for a neutrally buoyant cable. Furthermore, the assumption that the horizontal forces are much smaller than the vertical forces can be used to reduce the expression for buoy excursion to the form reported by Lampietti and Snyder for the taut‐moored cable.