An unstructured spectral/hp element model for enhanced Boussinesq-type equations

A spectral/hp element method for solving enhanced Boussinesq-type equations in two horizontal dimensions is introduced. The numerical model is based on the discontinuous Galerkin method on unstructured meshes with expansions of arbitrary order. Numerical computations are used to illustrate that the computational efficiency of the model increases with increasing (i) expansion polynomial order, (ii) integration time and (iii) relative depth. Thus, the spectral/hp element technique appears to offers potentially significant savings in computational time for a fixed numerical error, compared to low-order numerical methods, for large-scale and long-time simulations of dispersive wave propagation. The practical applicability of the model is illustrated by several test cases. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.