DIFFRACTION OF A SOLITARY WAVE BY A THIN WEDGE PART 2. EFFECTS OF VISCOUS BOUNDARY LAYERS

Based on the study on the Mach reflection of a solitary wave in [3] , we continue to investi-gate effects of the boundary layers on the bottom and the vertical side wall. By using matched asymptoticmethods, the two-dimensional KdV equation is modified to account for effects of viscosity. Numericalsimulation of the problem shows that the effects of side wall are important while the effects of the bottomcan be neglected. The results including the side wall’s effects agree satisfactorily with those of Melville’sexperiments. Finally, we establish the simplified concept of the side wall effect and conclude that it repre-sents the physical reason for the discrepancy between the experiments and the previous calculations basedon the inviscid fluid flow theory.