The propagation of flexural waves in floating ice plates is governed by two restoring forces – elastic bending of the plate, and the tendency of gravity to make the upper surface of the supporting water horizontal. This paper studies steady wave patterns generated by a steadily moving source on a water–ice system that is assumed to be homogeneous and of infinite horizontal extent, using asymptotic Fourier analysis to give a simple description of the wave pattern far from the source. Short-wavelength elastic waves propagate ahead, while the long gravity waves appear behind; and, depending on the system parameters, one, two or no caustics may appear. Wavecrest patterns are shown, and the amplitude variation with direction from the source is given. Where the two caustics just merge together, a special mathematical function analogous to the Airy function is introduced to describe wave amplitudes. These waves can be detected by a strainmeter embedded in the ice, and we compare its theoretical response with some experimental measurements.

When a steadily moving load is applied to a floating ice plate, the disturbance will generally approach a steady state (relative to the load) as time t → ∞. However, for certain ‘critical’ load speeds the disturbance may grow continuously with time, which represents some danger to vehicles driving on ice. To understand this phenomenon and the overall time development of the ice response, this paper analyses the problem of an impulsively applied, concentrated line load on a perfectly elastic homogeneous floating ice plate. An exact expression for the ice deflection is derived, and then interpreted by means of asymptotic expansions for large t in the vicinity of the source. The spatial development of the disturbance is analysed by considering asymptotic expansions as t → ∞ near an observer moving away from the load. Theoretical results are compared with field measurements, and some hitherto unexplained features can be understood.

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We use a numerical nonlinear multigrid magnetic relaxation technique to investigate the generation of current sheets in three-dimensional magnetic flux braiding experiments. We are able to catalogue the relaxed nonlinear force-free equilibria resulting from the application of deformations to an initially undisturbed region of plasma containing a uniform, vertical magnetic field. The deformations are manifested by imposing motions on the bounding planes to which the magnetic field is anchored. Once imposed the new distribution of magnetic footpoints are then taken to be fixed, so that the rest of the plasma must then relax to a new equilibrium configuration. For the class of footpoint motions we have examined, we find that singular and nonsingular equilibria can be generated. By singular we mean that within the limits imposed by numerical resolution we find that there is no convergence to a well-defined equilibrium as the number of grid points in the numerical domain is increased. These singular equilibria contain current "sheets" of ever-increasing current intensity and decreasing width; they occur when the footpoint motions exceed a certain threshold, and must include both twist and shear to be effective. On the basis of these results we contend that flux braiding will indeed result in significant current generation. We discuss the implications of our results for coronal heating.

This paper analyses instabilities on the cryolite/aluminium interface in an aluminium reduction cell. The simplified cell model is a finite rectangular tank containing the two fluid layers, and carrying a uniform normal current. The magnetic field is assumed to be a linear function of position. Several previous studies have considered waves consisting of a single Fourier component but here we consider perturbations which are a general combination of the normal gravity-wave modes. We derive a system of coupled ordinary differential equations for the time-development of the mode amplitudes, and show that instability can occur via mode interactions, the electromagnetic perturbation force due to one mode feeding energy into the other. Growth rates are determined by computing the eigenvalues of an interaction matrix, and an approximate method using only the three leading diagonals is developed. If two modes have similar frequencies they may resonate and become unstable at a very low threshold current. We consider the influence of various cell parameters and draw some general conclusions about cell design.

To illustrate his theory of coronal heating, Parker initially considers the problem of disturbing a homogeneous vertical magnetic field that is line-tied across two infinite horizontal surfaces. It is argued that, in the absence of resistive effects, any perturbed equilibrium must be independent of z. As a result random footpoint perturbations give rise to magnetic singularities, which generate strong Ohmic heating in the case of resistive plasmas. More recently these ideas have been formalized in terms of a magneto-static theorem but no formal proof has been provided. In this paper we investigate the Parker hypothesis by formulating the problem in terms of the fluid displacement. We find that, contrary to Parker's assertion, well-defined solutions for arbitrary compressibility can be constructed which possess non-trivial z-dependence. In particular, an analytic treatment shows that small-amplitude Fourier disturbances violate the symmetry ∂ z = 0 for both compact and non-compact regions of the (x, y) plane. Magnetic relaxation experiments at various levels of gas pressure confirm the existence and stability of the Fourier mode solutions. More general footpoint displacements that include appreciable shear and twist are also shown to relax to well-defined non-singular equilibria. The implications for Parker's theory of coronal heating are discussed.

This paper extends previous theoretical work on waves in floating ice plates to take account of the following effects: (i) compressive stress in the plane of the plate, (ii) uniform flow in the underlying water, and (iii) stratification of the underlying water. The first two effects are unlikely to be important in practice, causing respectively a slight decrease in phase speed and mainly a re-orientation of the wave pattern due to a steadily moving source. A two-layer model is used to describe stratification, which introduces a new system of slow internal waves associated with the layer interface, while the surface flexural waves are only slightly modified. In the case of unstratified water there is a minimum speed cmin such that more slowly moving sources excite a static rather than a wavelike response in the ice. With stratified water there remains a variety of steady wave patterns due to the internal waves, at source speeds below cmin. Another important effect of stratification is to greatly increase wave drag. For certain source load distributions, internal-wave amplitudes may grow until linear theory is no longer applicable.