An Extended Analytic Solution of Combined Refraction and Diffraction of Long Waves Propagating over Circular Island

An analytic solution of long waves scattering by a cylindrical island mounted on a permeable circular shoal was obtained by solving the linear long wave equation (LWE). The solution is in terms of the Bessel function expressed by complex variables. The present solution is suitable for arbitrary bottom configurations described by a power function with two independent parameters. For the case of the paraboloidal shoal, there exists a singular point (α=2) which can be removed using Frobenius series, where α is a real constant. The present solution is reduced to Yu and Zhang’s (2003) solution for impermeable circular shoal. The numerical results show some special features of the combined effect of wave refraction and diffraction caused by a porous circular island. The effect of key parameters of the island dimension, the shoal slope, and permeability on wave scattering was discussed based on the analytic solution

An analytical solution to the extended mild-slope equation for long waves propagating over an axi-symmetric pit

author's final versionAn analytic solution to the extended mild-slope equation is derived for long waves propagating over an axi-symmetric pit, where the water depth decreases in proportion to a power of radial distance from the pit center. The solution is obtained using the method of separation of variables and the method of Frobenius. By comparing the extended and conventional mild-slope equations for waves propagating over conical pits with different bottom slopes, it is shown that for long waves the conventional mild-slope equation is reasonably accurate for bottom slopes less than 1:3 in horizontal two-dimensional domains. The effects of the pit shape on wave scattering are discussed based on the analytic solutions for different powers. Comparison is also made with an analytic solution for a cylindrical pit with a vertical sidewall. Finally, wave attenuation in the region over the pit is discussed

An analytic solution to the mild slope equation for waves propagating over an axi-symmetric pit

An analytic solution to the mild slope equation is derived for waves propagating over an axi-symmetric pit located in an otherwise constant depth region. The water depth inside the pit decreases in proportion to an integer power of radial distance from the pit center. The mild slope equation in cylindrical coordinates is transformed into ordinary differential equations by using the method of separation of variables, and the coefficients of the equation in radial direction are transformed into explicit forms by using the direct solution for the wave dispersion equation by Hunt (Hunt, J.N., 1979. Direct solution of wave dispersion equation. J. Waterw., Port, Coast., Ocean Div., Proc. ASCE, 105, 457-459). Finally, the Frobenius series is used to obtain the analytic solution. Due to the feature of the Hunts solution, the present analytic solution is accurate in shallow and deep waters, while it is less accurate in intermediate depth waters. The validity of the analytic solution is demonstrated by comparison with numerical solutions of the hyperbolic mild slope equations. The analytic solution is also used to examine the effects of the pit geometry and relative depth on wave transformation. Finally, wave attenuation in the region over the pit is discussed.author's final versio

Diffraction and refraction calculations for waves incident on an island

An island of circular cylindrical shape, situated on a paraboloidal shoal (Fig. 1 and Table 1) in an infinite ocean of constant depth is attacked by small regular waves of long period and of plane incidence. The wave field around the island is calculated according to two different approaches, viz. a diffraction theory and a refraction theory (i.e. geometrical optics). The solutions are compared for those (tsunami) periods, where the Coriolis force can be neglected

Nonlinear diffraction and refraction of regular and random waves

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (p. 302-306).The mild-slope equation is an effective approximation for treating the combined effects of refraction and diffraction of infinitesimal water waves, for it reduces the spatial dimension of the linear boundary value problem from three to two. We extend this approximation to nonlinear waves up to the second order in wave steepness, in order to simplify the inherently three-dimensional task. Assuming that the geometrical complexity is restricted to a finite, though large, horizontal domain, the hybrid-element method designed earlier for linearized problems is modified for the two-dimensional elliptic boundary-value problems at the second order. This thesis consists of two parts. In Part I, the incident waves are monochromatic. Application is first made to the special case of a a semi-circular peninsula (or a vertical cylinder on a cliff). Effects of the angle of incidence are examined for the free surface height along the cylinder. Numerical results for three examples involving radially varying depth are discussed. In Part II the second-order mild-slope approximation will be further extended for random waves with a broad frequency spectrum. A stochastic approach of Sclavounos is generalized for the prediction of spectral response in harbors. Focuss is on the low-frequency harbor resonance, so the third-order solution is unnecessary. Numerical examples are given for a simple square harbor of constant depth. Effects of harbor entrance are examined. Possible extensions and other applications are discussed.by Meng-Yi Chen.Ph.D

Efficient Light and Sound Propagation in Refractive Media with Analytic Ray Curve Tracer

Refractive media is ubiquitous in the natural world, and light and sound propagation in refractive media leads to characteristic visual and acoustic phenomena. Those phenomena are critical for engineering applications to simulate with high accuracy requirements, and they can add to the perceived realism and sense of immersion for training and entertainment applications. Existing methods can be roughly divided into two categories with regard to their handling of propagation in refractive media; first category of methods makes simplifying assumption about the media or entirely excludes the consideration of refraction in order to achieve efficient propagation, while the second category of methods accommodates refraction but remains computationally expensive. In this dissertation, we present algorithms that achieve efficient and scalable propagation simulation of light and sound in refractive media, handling fully general media and scene configurations. Our approaches are based on ray tracing, which traditionally assumes homogeneous media and rectilinear rays. We replace the rectilinear rays with analytic ray curves as tracing primitives, which represent closed-form trajectory solutions based on assumptions of a locally constant media gradient. For general media profiles, the media can be spatially decomposed into explicit or implicit cells, within which the media gradient can be assumed constant, leading to an analytic ray path within that cell. Ray traversal of the media can therefore proceed in segments of ray curves. The first source of speedup comes from the fact that for smooth media, a locally constant media gradient assumption tends to stay valid for a larger area than the assumption of a locally constant media property. The second source of speedup is the constant-cost intersection computation of the analytic ray curves with planar surfaces. The third source of speedup comes from making the size of each cell and therefore each ray curve segment adaptive to the magnitude of media gradient. Interactions with boundary surfaces in the scene can be efficiently handled within this framework in two alternative approaches. For static scenes, boundary surfaces can be embedded into the explicit mesh of tetrahedral cells, and the mesh can be traversed and the embedded surfaces intersected with by the analytic ray curve in a unified manner. For dynamic scenes, implicit cells are used for media traversal, and boundary surface intersections can be handled separately by constructing hierarchical acceleration structures adapted from rectilinear ray tracer. The efficient handling of boundary surfaces is the fourth source of speedup of our propagation path computation. We demonstrate over two orders-of-magnitude performance improvement of our analytic ray tracing algorithms over prior methods for refractive light and sound propagation. We additionally present a complete sound-propagation simulation solution that matches the path computation efficiency achieved by the ray curve tracer. We develop efficient pressure computation algorithm based on analytic evaluations and combine our algorithm with the Gaussian beam for fast acoustic field computation. We validate the accuracy of the simulation results on published benchmarks, and we show the application of our algorithms on complex and general three-dimensional outdoor scenes. Our algorithms enable simulation scenarios that are simply not feasible with existing methods, and they have the potential of being extended and complementing other propagation methods for capability beyond handling refractive media.Doctor of Philosoph

In–out decomposition of boundary integral equations

We propose a reformulation of the boundary integral equations for the Helmholtz equation in a domain in terms of incoming and outgoing boundary waves. We obtain transfer operator descriptions which are exact and thus incorporate features such as diffraction and evanescent coupling; these effects are absent in the well-known semiclassical transfer operators in the sense of Bogomolny. It has long been established that transfer operators are equivalent to the boundary integral approach within semiclassical approximation. Exact treatments have been restricted to specific boundary conditions (such as Dirichlet or Neumann). The approach we propose is independent of the boundary conditions, and in fact allows one to decouple entirely the problem of propagating waves across the interior from the problem of reflecting waves at the boundary. As an application, we show how the decomposition may be used to calculate Goos–Haenchen shifts of ray dynamics in billiards with variable boundary conditions and for dielectric cavities