Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T15:07:05.721Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dromions of flexural-gravity waves

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2013

Mohammad-Reza Alam
Mohammad-Reza Alam*
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
*
†Email address for correspondence: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Here we show that weakly nonlinear flexural-gravity wave packets, such as those propagating on the surface of ice-covered waters, admit three-dimensional fully localized solutions that travel with a constant speed without dispersion or dissipation. These solutions, that are formed at the intersection of line-soliton mean-flow tracks, have exponentially decaying tails in all directions and are called dromions in contrast to lumps that decay only algebraically. We derive, by asymptotic expansion and assuming multiple scales for spatial and temporal variations, the three-dimensional weakly nonlinear governing equations that describe the coupled motion of the wavepacket envelope and the underlying mean current. We show that in the limit of long waves and strong flexural rigidity these equations reduce to a system of nonlinear elliptic–hyperbolic partial differential equations similar to the Davey–Stewartson I (DSI) equation, but with major differences in the coefficients. Specifically, and contrary to DSI equations, the elliptic and hyperbolic operators in the flexural-gravity equations are not canonical resulting in complications in analytical considerations. Furthermore, standard computational techniques encounter difficulties in obtaining the dromion solution to these equations owing to the presence of a spatial hyperbolic operator whose solution does not decay at infinity. Here, we present a direct (iterative) numerical scheme that uses pseudo-spectral expansion and pseudo-time integration to find the dromion solution to the flexural-gravity wave equation. Details of this direct simulation technique are discussed and properties of the solution are elaborated through an illustrative case study. Dromions may play an important role in transporting energy over the ice cover in the Arctic, resulting in the ice breaking far away from the ice edge, and also posing danger to icebreaker ships. In fact we found that, contrary to DSI dromions that only exist in water depths of less than 5 mm, flexural-gravity dromions exist for a broad range of ice thicknesses and water depths including values that may be realized in polar oceans.

JFM classification

Geophysical and Geological Flows: Sea ice Waves/Free-surface Flows: Solitary waves Waves/Free-surface Flows: Surface gravity waves
Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 719 , 25 March 2013 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
©2013 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ablowitz, M. J. & Segur, H. 1979 On the evolution of packets of water waves. J. Fluid Mech. 92, 691–715.Google Scholar
Akylas, T. R., Dias, F. & Grimshaw, R. H. J. 1998 The effect of the induced mean flow on solitary waves in deep water. J. Fluid Mech. 355, 317–328.Google Scholar
Benney, D. J. & Luke, J. C. 1964 On the interactions of permanent waves of finite amplitude. J. Math. Phys. 43, 309–313.Google Scholar
Berger, K. M. & Milewsky, P. A. 2000 The generation and evolution of lump solitary waves in surface-tension-dominated flows. SIAM J. Appl. Maths 61 (3), 731–750.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Besse, C., Mauser, N. J. & Stimming, H. P. 2004 Numerical study of the Davey–Stewartson system. ESIAM; Math. Model. Numer. Anal. 38 (6), 1035–1054.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boiti, M., Leon, J. J.-P., Martina, L. & Pempinelli, F. 1988 Scattering of localized solitons in the plane. Phys. Lett. A 132 (8,9), 432–439.Google Scholar
Champagne, B. & Winternitz, P. 1988 On the infinite-dimensional symmetry group of the Davey–Stewartson equations. J. Math. Phys. 29 (1), 1–8.Google Scholar
Chen, X. J., Jensen, J. J., Cui, W. C. & Fu, S. X. 2003 Hydroelasticity of a floating plate in multidirectional waves. Ocean Engng 30 (15), 1997–2017.Google Scholar
Clarkson, P. A. & Hood, S. 1994 New symmetry reductions and exact solutions of the Davey–Stewartson system. I. Reductions to ordinary differential equations. J. Math. Phys. 35 (1), 255–283.Google Scholar
Davey, A. & Stewartson, K. 1974 On three-dimensional packets of surface waves. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A 338 (1613), 101–110.Google Scholar
Djordjevic, V. D. & Redekopp, L. G. 1977 On two-dimensional packets of capillary-gravity waves. J. Fluid Mech. 79 (4), 703–714.Google Scholar
Duan, W.-S. 2003 Weakly two-dimensional modulated wave packet in dusty plasmas. Phys. Plasmas 10 (7), 3022–3055.Google Scholar
Fokas, A. S. & Santini, P. M. 1990 Dromions and a boundary value problem for the Davey–Stewartson 1 equation. Physica D 44 (1–2), 99–130.Google Scholar
Forbes, L. K. 1986 Surface waves of large amplitude beneath an elastic sheet. Part 1. High-order series solution. J. Fluid Mech. 169, 409–428.Google Scholar
Freeman, N. C. & Davey, A. 1975 On the evolution of packets of long surface waves. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A 344 (1638), 427–433.Google Scholar
Gilson, C. R. & Nimmo, J. J. C. 1991 A direct method for dromion solutions of the Davey–Stewartson equations and their asymptotic properties. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A 435 (1894), 339–357.Google Scholar
Groves, M. D. & Sun, S.-M. 2008 Fully localised solitary-wave solutions of the three-dimensional gravity-capillary water-wave problem. Arch. Rat. Mech. Anal. 188, 1–91.Google Scholar
Hayashi, N. & Hirata, H. 1996 Global existence and asymptotic behaviour in time of small solutions to the elliptic hyperbolic Davey Stewartson system. Nonlinearity 9 (6), 1387–1409.Google Scholar
Hietarinta, J. 1990 One-dromion solutions for genetic classes of equations. Phys. Lett. A 149 (2–3), 113–118.Google Scholar
Hietarinta, J. & Hirota, R. 1990 Multidromion solutions to the Davey–Stewartson equation. Phys. Lett. A 145 (5), 237–244.Google Scholar
Hogan, S. J. 1985 The fourth-order evolution equation for deep-water gravity-capillary waves. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A 402 (1823), 359–372.Google Scholar
Hǎrǎguş-Courcelle, M. & Il’ichev, A. 1998 Three-dimensional solitary waves in the presence of additional surface effects. Eur. J. Mech. (B Fluids) 17 (5), 739–768.Google Scholar
Hizel, E., Turgay, N. C. & Guldogan, B. 2009 The symmetry reductions and new exact solutions of the generalized Davey–Stewartson equation. Intl J. Contemp. Math. Sci. 4 (18), 883–894.Google Scholar
Johnson, R. S. 1997 A Modern Introduction to the Mathematical Theory of Water Waves. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kadomtsev, B. B. & Petviashvili, V. I. 1970 On the stability of solitary waves in weakly dispersive media. Sov. Phys. Dokl. 15 (6), 539–541.Google Scholar
Kim, B. & Akylas, T. R. 2005 On gravity capillary lumps. J. Fluid Mech. 540, 337–351.Google Scholar
Korobkin, A., Parau, E. I. & Vanden-Broeck, J.-M. 2011 The mathematical challenges and modelling of hydroelasticity. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A 369 (1947), 2803–2812.Google Scholar
Kuznetsov, E. A., Rubenchik, A. M. & Zakharov, V. E. 1986 Soliton stability in plasmas and hydrodynamics. Phys. Rep. 142 (3), 103–165.Google Scholar
Leblond, H. 1999 Electromagnetic waves in ferromagnets: a Davey–Stewartson-type model. J. Phys. A 32 (45), 7907–7932.Google Scholar
Leblond, H. 2001 The Davey–Stewartson model in quadratic media: a way to control pulses. Soliton-driven Photonics 31 (4), 215–218.Google Scholar
Liu, A. K. & Mollo-Christensen, E. 1988 Wave propagation in a solid ice pack. J. Phys. Oceanogr. 18 (11), 1702–1712.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marko, J. R. 2003 Observations and analyses of an intense waves-in-ice event in the Sea of Okhotsk. J. Geophys. Res. 108 (C9, 3296).Google Scholar
Miles, J & Sneyd, A. D. 2003 The response of a floating ice sheet to an accelerating line load. J. Fluid Mech. 497, 435–439.Google Scholar
Milewski, P. A., Vanden-Broeck, J.-M. & Wang, Z. 2011 Hydroelastic solitary waves in deep water. J. Fluid Mech. 679, 628–640.Google Scholar
Nishinari, K. & Yajima, T. 1994 Numerical studies on stability of Dromion and its collisions. J. Phys. Soc. Japan 63 (10), 3538–3541.Google Scholar
Osborne, A. R. 2009 Nonlinear Ocean Waves and the Inverse Scattering Transform. Academic.Google Scholar
Parau, E. I. & Vanden-Broeck, J.-M. 2011 Three-dimensional waves beneath an ice sheet due to a steadily moving pressure. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A 369 (1947), 2973–2988.Google Scholar
Radha, R. & Lakshmanan, M. 1994 Singularity analysis equations and localized coherent structures in $(2+ 1)$ dimensional generalized Korteweg-de Vries. J. Math. Phys. 35 (9), 4746–4756.Google Scholar
Schultz, C. L., Ablowitz, M. J. & Bar Yaacov, D. 1987 Davey–Stewartson I system: a quantum $(2+ 1)$ -dimensional integrable system. Phys. Rev. Lett. 59 (25), 2825–2828.Google Scholar
Strathdee, J., Robinson, W. H. & Haines, E. M. 1991 Moving loads on ice plates of finite thickness. J. Fluid Mech. 226, 37–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suzuki, H. 2005 Overview of megafloat: concept, design criteria, analysis, and design. Mar. Struct. 18 (2), 111–132.Google Scholar
White, P. W. & Weideman, J. A. C. 1994 Numerical simulation of solitons and dromions in the Davey–Stewartson system. Math. Comput. Simul. 37 (4–5), 469–479.Google Scholar