| Popis: |
In this paper we focus on the distortion of a solitary wave due to a slowly decreasing water depth. This research was motivated by recent theoretical investigations of Van Groesen & Pudjaprasetya [1,2], based on a modified version of the well-known Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation [3]. This theory predicts the transition of a 1-soliton into a 2-soliton under the influence of a mildly sloping bottom; the numerical calculations reported here seem to indicate that this effect occurs indeed. The effect of an uneven bottom on this special type of water waves is obviously of engineering importance; the occurrence of analogous situations in widely different physical phenomena (e.g. in optics: irregularities in glass fibre cables) adds even more practical relevance to this topic. Earlier work in this specific area of interest is due to (for instance) Madsen & Mei [4], Miles [5], Knickerbocker & Newell [6] and, very recently, Johnson [7]. However, in none of these publications there seems to be clear evidence of exact splitting of solitary waves, neither from theoretical and numerical investigations nor from experimental observations. |
