Numerical solutions for two nonlinear wave equations

Abstract

The split-step pseudo-spectral method is a useful method for solving nonlinear wave equations. However, it is not widely used because of the limitation of the periodic boundary condition. In this paper, the method is modified at its second step by avoiding transforming the wave height function into a frequency domain function. Thus, the periodic boundary condition is not required, and the new method is easy to implement. In order to validate its performance, the proposed method was used to solve the nonlinear parabolic mild-slope equation and the spatial modified nonlinear Schrödinger (MNLS) equation, which were used to model the wave propagation under different bathymetric conditions. Good agreement between the numerical and experimental results shows that the present method is effective and efficient in solving nonlinear wave equations.

Keywords

• nonlinear water wave equation
• parabolic mild-slope equation
• spatial MNLS equation
• numerical method