Interactions of waves with a body floating in an open water channel confined by two semi-infinite ice sheets

• Main Authors: Li, ZF, Wu, GX, Ren, K
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS 2021
• Subjects: Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10128603/1/JFM%20%282021%20Li-Wu-Ren%29.pdf; https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10128603/

Wave radiation and diffraction problems of a body floating in an open water channel confined by two semi-infinite ice sheets are considered. The linearized velocity potential theory is used for fluid flow and a thin elastic plate model is adopted for the ice sheet. The Green function, which satisfies all the boundary conditions apart from that on the body surface, is first derived. This is obtained through applying Fourier transform in the longitudinal direction of the channel, and matched eigenfunction expansions in the transverse plane. With the help of the derived Green function, the boundary integral equation of the potential is derived and it is shown that the integrations over all other boundaries, including the bottom of the fluid, free surface, ice sheet, ice edge as well as far field will be zero, and only the body surface has to be retained. This allows the problem to be solved through discretization of the body surface only. Detailed results for hydrodynamic forces are provided, which are generally highly oscillatory owing to complex wave–body–channel interaction and body–body interaction. In depth investigations are made for the waves confined in a channel, which does not decay at infinity. Through this, a detailed analysis is presented on how the wave generated by a body will affect the other bodies even when they are far apart.