Head-on collision between two hydroelastic solitary waves with Plotnikov-Toland's plate model

Head-on collision between two hydroelastic solitary waves propagating at the surface of an incompressible and ideal fluid covered by a thin ice sheet is analytically studied by means of a singular perturbation method. The ice sheet is represented by the Plotnikov-Toland model with the help of the special Cosserat theory of hyperelastic shells and the Kirchhoff-Love plate theory,which yields the nonlinear and conservative expression for the bending forces. The shallow water assumption is taken for the fluid motion with the Boussinesq approximation. The resulting governing equations are solved asymptotically with the aid of the Poincaré-Lighthill-Kuo method,and the solutions up to the third order are explicitly presented. It is observed that solitary waves after collision do not change their shapes and amplitudes. The wave profile is symmetric before collision, and it becomes, after collision, unsymmetric and titled backward in the direction of wave propagation. The wave profile significantly reduces due to greater impacts of elastic plate and surface tension. A graphical comparison is presented with published results, and the graphical comparison between linear and nonlinear elastic plate models is also shown as a special case of our study.