The coupling between ocean waves and rectangular ice sheets

This paper describes a semi-analytic approach to problems involving rectangular elastic plates of shallow draft floating on water. Specifically, two problems are considered: the scattering of plane monochromatic incident waves by a single elastic plate and the propagation/attenuation of waves through a periodic rectangular arrangement of plates. The approach combines Fourier methods with Rayleigh–Ritz methods for free modes of rectangular plates which reduces each problem to an algebraic system of equations which are numerically accurate and efficient to compute. A selection of results are given to illustrate the work. The approach can be applied to many problems in hydroelasticity including the seakeeping of large flat-bottomed marine vessels, deflections in very large floating structures such as offshore airports and wave propagation through areas of broken sea ice.