  The elastic scattering of the $^{16}$O+$^{28}$Si system has been analyzed
with a modified potential within the framework of the optical model over a wide
energy range in the laboratory system from 29.0 to 142.5 MeV. This system has
been extensively studied over the years and a number of serious problems has
remained unsolved: The explanation of the anomalous large angle scattering
data; the out-of-phase problem between theoretical predictions and experimental
data; the reproduction of the oscillatory structure near the Coulomb barrier;
the consistent description of angular distributions together with the
excitation functions data are just some of these problems. We propose the use
of a modified potential method to explain these problems over this wide energy
range. This new method consistently improves the agreement with the
experimental data and achieves a major improvement on all the previous Optical
model calculations for this system.
