Effect of bottom topography on the unsteady behaviour of an elastic plate floating on shallow water

The unsteady behaviour of a thin elastic plate in the form of a strip of constant width and infinite length, floating on the surface of an ideal and incompressible liquid, is investigated within the limits of the linear shallow-water theory. The unsteady behaviour of the plate is caused by initial disturbances or an external load. The depth of the liquid under the plate is variable. It is assumed that all the flow characteristics are independent of the coordinate along the plate. The deflection of the plate is sought in the form of an expansion in eigenfunctions of the oscillations in a vacuum with time-varying amplitudes. The problem reduces to solving an infinite system of ordinary differential equations for the unknown amplitudes. The behaviour of the plate is investigated for different actions and shapes of bottom irregularities. It is shown that the bottom topography can have a considerable effect on the deformation of the plate.