Finite element method implementation in long wave modeling.

Pablo Corts. April 23, 2013.

ABSTRACT An implementation of a numerical method to solve long wave equations, such as the Regularized Long Wave Equation, the Bousinnesq Equation, or the KdV equation, in one dimension, will be implemented in MatLab in order to observe the behavior of these waves, with emphasis on solitary waves and/or Soliton Fission. The motivation points to study nonlinear effects that manifest in nature, (i.e. Soliton Fission on Tsunami), that most wave models discard in order to obtain faster and robust approximations on wave height and flows, among other variables. It is also desired to gain knowledge about the architecture behind the numerical schemes, (grid size, interpolation functions), that are used in fluid mechanics to solve the equations that model the phenomena, looking up to further applications of the method in upcoming projects. Since the actual knowledge in this topic, has not been deeply studied by the author, the methodology consists on reviewing literature about the theory behind long waves & nonlinear effects, and different proposed models, in order to select one and translate it into code. In this line, some of the books and papers to be considered in the review include: Dean & Darlymple,(2000); Kapoor-Rawat-Dhawan,(2012) ; Li-Liu-Yu-lai, (1999); Avilez-Seabra, (2004). Its important to highlight that more papers might be included in forthcoming revisions, and that the final physical model, (Bousinnesq, RLWE, KdV, etc.), has not been decided yet. This small research does not intend to produce a new method for modeling long waves, it rather points to gain deeper knowledge in what other authors have done to the date.

REFERENCES
DEAN R. G. & DARLYMPLE R. A. (2000), Water Wave Mechanics for Engineers and Scientists, 5: 131-137 & 11:296-323. KAPOOR S., RAWAT S. & DHAWAN S. (2012), Numerical Investigation of Separated Solitary Waves Solution for KDV Equation through Finite Element Technique. International Journal of Computer Applications 40, 27-33. LI Y. S., LIU S. X., YU Y. X. & LAI G. Z., (1999). Numerical modeling of Boussinesq equations by finite element method. Coastal Engineering 37, 97-122. AVILEZ P. & SEABRA F. J., (2004), A PetrovGalerkin finite element scheme for the regularized long wave equation. Computational Mechanics 34, 256270