Surface and Internal Waves due to a Moving Load on a Very Large Floating Structure

Interaction of surface/internal water waves with a floating platform is discussed with nonlinearity of fluid motion and flexibility of oscillating structure. The set of governing equations based on a variational principle is applied to a oneor two-layer fluid interacting with a horizontally very large and elastic thin plate floating on the water surface. Calculation results of surface displacements are compared with the existing experimental data, where a tsunami, in terms of a solitary wave, propagates across one-layer water with a floating thin plate. We also simulate surface and internal waves due to a point load, such as an airplane, moving on a very large floating structure in shallow water. The wave height of the surface or internal mode is amplified when the velocity of moving point load is equal to the surfaceor internal-mode celerity, respectively.