Water wave scattering by a pair of thin vertical barriers with submerged gaps

Abstract

The scattering of obliquely incident water waves by two thin vertical barriers with gaps at different depths has been studied assuming linear theory. Using Havelock’s expansion of water wave potential, the problem is reduced to two pairs of integral equations of the first kind, one pair involving a horizontal component of velocity across the gaps and the other pair involving the difference of potentials across each wall. These two pairs of integral equations can be solved approximately by employing a Galerkin single-term approximation technique to obtain numerical estimates for the reflection and transmission coefficients. These estimates for the reflection and transmission coefficients thus obtained are seen to satisfy the energy identity. The reflection coefficient is plotted against wave number in a number of figures for different values of various parameters involved in the problem. It is observed that the reflection coefficient vanishes at discrete frequencies when the vertical barriers are identical. For nonidentical vertical barriers the reflection coefficient never vanishes, though at some wave number it becomes close to zero. The results for a single barrier and fully submerged two barriers, and for a single barrier with a narrow gap, are also recovered as special cases.