Diffraction of oblique water waves by small uneven channel-bed in a two-layer fluid

Abstract

Obliquely incident water wave scattering by an uneven channel-bed in the form of a small bottom undulation in a two-layer fluid is investigated within the frame work of three-dimensional linear water wave theory. The upper fluid is assumed to be bounded above by a rigid lid, while the lower one is bounded below by a bottom surface having a small deformation and the channel is unbounded in the horizontal directions. Assuming irrotational motion, perturbation technique is employed to calculate the first-order corrections to the velocity potentials in the two fluids by using Fourier transform approximately, and also to calculate the reflection and transmission coefficients in terms of integrals involving the shape function representing the bottom deformation. Consideration of a patch of sinusoidal ripples shows that the reflection coefficient is an oscillatory function of the ratio of twice the component of the wave number along x-axis and the ripple wave number. When this ratio approaches one, the theory predicts a resonant interaction between the bed and interface, and the reflection coefficient becomes a multiple of the number of ripples. High reflection of incident wave energy occurs if this number is large.