Nonlinear sloshing and passage through resonance in a shallow water tank

This paper is concerned with the effect of slowly changing the length of a tank on the nonlinear standing waves (free vibrations) and resonant forced oscillations of shallow water in the tank. The analysis begins with the Boussinesq equations. These are reduced to a nonlinear differential-difference equation for the slow variation of a Riemann invariant on one end. Then a multiple scale expansion yields a KdV equation with slowly changing coefficients for the standing wave problem, which is reduced to a KdV equation with a variable dispersion coefficient. The effect of changing the tank length on the number of solitons in the tank is investigated through numerical solutions of the variable coefficient KdV equation. A KdV equation which is "periodically" forced and slowly detuned results for the passage through resonance problem. Then the amplitude-frequency curves for the fundamental resonance and the first overtone are given numerically, as well as solutions corresponding to multiple equilibria. The evolution between multiple equilibria is also examined.