Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 July 2009
We consider the solution in the time domain of water-wave scattering by arrays ofbottom-mounted cylinders. It has already been shown that near trapping occursfor certain arrangements of cylinders and we are especially focused on thisphenomenon. We begin with the well-known single-frequency solution to theproblem of a group of cylinders, and the extension of this solution to complexfrequencies. It has been shown that singularities (scattering frequencies orresonances) occur for certain values of the complex frequency and thesesingularities are associated with the near-trapped mode. We show that it ispossible to approximate the solution near these singularities, and produce amodal shape which is associated with the near-trapped mode. We then consider thetime-dependent problem, beginning with the well-known incident plane wave packetsolution. We also show how the problem of an arbitrary initial displacement canbe found using the single-frequency solutions. This latter result relies on aspecial inner product which gives a generalized eigenfunction expansion (becausethe operator has a continuous spectrum). We then consider the approximation ofthe time-dependent motion using special mode shapes associated with thescattering frequencies. This approximation relies on the scattering frequencieslying close to the real axis. We present numerical results which show that thisapproximation is accurate for sufficiently large time.
Movie 1. The near trapped mode for four cylinders associated with the scattering frequency at 2.7641 - 0.0122i.
Movie 2. The near trapped mode for nine cylinders associated with the scattering frequency at 2.7114 - 0.0041i
Movie 3. One of the near trapped modes for nine cylinders associated with the scattering frequency at 2.7635 - 0.0086i
Movie 4. One of the near trapped modes for nine cylinders associated with the scattering frequency at 2.7635 - 0.0086i
Movie 5. The near trapped mode for nine cylinders associated with the scattering frequency at 2.8284 - 0.0102i
Movie 6. The true (a) and approximate (b) solution for four cylinders for a plane incident wave given by equation (4.7).
Movie 7. The true (a) and approximate (b) solution for nine cylinders for a plane incident wave given by equation (4.7).
Movie 8. The true (a) and approximate (b) solution for four cylinders for a plane incident wave given by equation (4.8). We do not start the approximate solution until t=0.