Conceptual

Boundary Integral Equation Solver for Flexural-Gravity Wave Scattering by Variable-Thickness Ice

A fast, high-order numerical method for the scattering of time-harmonic flexural-gravity waves by a thin elastic plate of spatially varying thickness (a model of sea ice or an ice shelf with ridges and rolls) floating on a fluid of infinite depth. The coupled potential-flow / thin-plate boundary-value problem, whose plate flexure adds a fourth-order biharmonic term, is reformulated under natural thickness assumptions as a Fredholm second-kind boundary integral equation; the paper analyzes its solvability and mapping properties, then discretizes it with a high-order-accurate Nystrom scheme whose kernel sums are FFT-accelerated, yielding a scalable, high-order-convergent solver.