Transient waves produced by flow past a bump (Q1060632)

Inviscid, incompressible, irrotational transient free surface flow past a bump is considered. Asymptotic methods are used to show that for Froude numbers sufficiently close to 1, the transient flow begins by satisfying the classical linear theory. The free surface then grows with time to becomes nonlinear then satisfying the Korteweg-de Vries equation with a forcing term. When solved numerically, this equation shows that solitary waves are generated at the bump and run upstream.