Internal wave diffraction by a strip of an elastic plate on the surface of a stratified fluid

The problem of internal wave diffraction by a strip of an elastic plate of finite width present on the surface of an exponentially stratified liquid is investigated in this paper. Assuming linear theory, the problem is formulated in terms of a function related to the stream function describing the motion in the liquid. The related boundary value problem involves a hyperbolic type partial differential equation (PDE), known as the Klein Gordon equation. The method of Wiener-Hopf is utilized in the mathematical analysis to a slightly generalized boundary value problem (BVP) by introducing a small parameter, and the problem is solved approximately for large width of the plate. In the final results, this small parameter is made to tend to zero. The diffracted field is obtained in terms of integrals, which are then evaluated asymptotically in different regions for a large distance from the edges of the plate and the results are interpreted physically.