An iterative method to solve a regularized model for strongly nonlinear long internal waves

We present a simple iterative scheme to solve numerically a regularized internal wave model describing the large amplitude motion of the interface between two layers of different densities. Compared with the original strongly nonlinear internal wave model of Miyata [10] and Choi and Camassa [2], the regularized model adopted here suppresses shear instability associated with a velocity jump across the interface, but the coupling between the upper and lower layers is more complicated so that an additional system of coupled linear equations must be solved at every time step after a set of nonlinear evolution equations are integrated in time. Therefore, an efficient numerical scheme is desirable. In our iterative scheme, the linear system is decoupled and simple linear operators with constant coefficients are required to be inverted. Through linear analysis, it is shown that the scheme converges fast with an optimum choice of iteration parameters. After demonstrating its effectiveness for a model problem, the iterative scheme is applied to solve the regularized internal wave model using a pseudo-spectral method for the propagation of a single internal solitary wave and the head-on collision between two solitary waves of different wave amplitudes. 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.