Question: Solving Hanging Cable

Hi

I am trying to follow this paper

http://euclid.trentu.ca/aejm/V4N1/Chatterjee.V4N1.pdf

Lets start with the easier problem, equal poles. Assume that the length of the cable is 120m and the two poles have equal height of 50m. Our goal is to determine the minimum distance between the two poles that will prevent the cable from touching the ground.

I was trying to get Maple to agree with their derived formula, namely

y(x)= 11*cosh(1/11*x) - 61,

but I think I have not set the IC's correctly. or provided for the length of the cable.

restart:
int(sqrt(1+diff(y(t),t)^2),t=0..x)=120/2

//can't solve the above directly, or maybe someone clever here can

//a is a constant
DIV := diff(y(x), x, x) = a*sqrt(1 + diff(y(x), x)^2);
RV := y(0) = 0, D(y)(0) = -50;
dsolve({DIV});
Opl := dsolve({DIV, RV}, y(x));
allvalues(%)
 

 

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