Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 September 2014
The extended Korteweg-de Vries (eKdV) equation is an important model for the description of internal solitary waves (ISWs) in shallow seas. The N-soliton solution of the eKdV equation is investigated by Hirota bilinear method. Direct simulation of the eKdV equation is performed for several ISWs phenomena including polarity conversion, packets and collisions by virtue of the N-soliton solution. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image simulations of those phenomena are also presented. Furthermore, the comparison between the simulated SAR image and the observed SAR image in the South China sea is provided, which shows that the N-soliton solution may describe various ISWs phenomena.