Wave excited motion of a body floating on water confined between two semi-infinite ice sheets

The wave excited motion of a body floating on water confined between two semi-infinite ice sheets is investigated. The ice sheet is treated as an elastic thin plate and water is treated as an ideal and incompressible fluid. The linearized velocity potential theory is adopted in the frequency domain and problems are solved by the method of matched eigenfunctions expansion. The fluid domain is divided into sub-regions and in each sub-region the velocity potential is expanded into a series of eigenfunctions satisfying the governing equation and the boundary conditions on horizontal planes including the free surface and ice sheets. Matching is conducted at the interfaces of two neighbouring regions to ensure the continuity of the pressure and velocity, and the unknown coefficients in the expressions are obtained as a result. The behaviour of the added mass and damping coefficients of the floating body with the effect of the ice sheets and the excitation force are analysed. They are found to vary oscillatorily with the wave number, which is different from that for a floating body in the open sea. The motion of the body confined between ice sheets is investigated, in particular its resonant behaviour with extremely large motion found to be possible under certain conditions. Standing waves within the polynya are also observed. Published by AIP Publishing.