The paper provides a detailed analysis for the second-order diffraction of monochromatic waves. For the second-order potential on the free surface, the paper proposed a forward prediction method for computing the integration on the free surface. By this method we only need to run the infinity integration on the free surface directly for a few points; a one-step quadrature can then be applied successively outward from the body for potentials at other points. For wave diffraction from a body of revolution with a vertical axis, the paper derives a new integral equation, which can cancel the leading singularity in the derivative of ring Green’s functions automatically. To obtain accurate results, different approaches are also used to deal with singularities in the ring Green’s functions in the integration on both the body surface and free surface. The method has been implemented for bodies of revolution with vertical axes, but the theory is also available for arbitrary bodies. A numerical examination is made to validate the numerical code by comparing the secondorder forces and moments on uniform and truncated cylinders and second-order diffraction potentials on the free surface with some published results. The comparison shows that the present results are in good agreement with those published. The method is also used to compute the second-order wave elevation around uniform and truncated cylinders. Ó 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.