Abstract

The motion of small-but finite-amplitude waves in shallow water is often modeled by the well-known Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation. Here we consider a case in which no solitons are present and compare the exact periodic travelling-wave solutions of the KdV equation (the cnoidal wave) to an approximate periodic solution of this equation previously obtained by the authors. We find that the approximate wave form is graphically indistinguishable from the cnoidal wave for a wide range of wave amplitudes. Furthermore, by extending the amplitude range up to the breaking wave limit we find that the approximate wave form is still a close representation of the cnoidal wave. This suggests that the approximate solution, which is just a simple formula, might be used for many practical calculations in place of the more difficult to compute cnoidal wave.

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