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A ray method for near-shore plumes in a shallow-water flow

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2006

Ronald Smith
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Technology, Loughborough, LE11 3TU, UK

Abstract

Far from a shoreline, the spreading of a contaminant plume in a shallow-water flow can be predicted easily and accurately by a ray-tracing method. Unfortunately, the concentration predictions become singular at a beach, where the ray paths have a caustic. In this paper a uniform approximation is derived which remains valid at a beach. It is shown how the singular ray solutions corresponding to rays incident to and transmitted from the beach can be combined to construct the uniform approximation.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1991 Cambridge University Press

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