Since the first description by John Scott Russel in 1834, the solitary wave phenomenon has attracted considerable interests from scientists. The most interesting discovery since then has been the ability to integrate most of the nonlinear wave equations which govern solitary waves, from the Korteweg-de Vries equation to the nonlinear Schrodinger equation, in the 1960's. From that moment, a huge amount of theoretical works can be found on solitary waves. Due to the fact that many physical phenomena can be described by a soliton model, applications have followed each other, in telecommunications

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications TWO PHASE FLOWS AND WAVES is based on the proceedings of a workshop which was an integral part of the 1988-89 IMA program on NONLINEAR WAVES. The workshop focussed on the development of waves in flowing composites. We thank the Coordinating Commit tee: James Glimm, Daniel Joseph, Barbara Keyfitz, Andrew Majda, Alan Newell, Peter Olver, David Sattinger and David Schaeffer for planning and implementing the stimulating year-long program. We especially thank the Workshop Organizers, Daniel D. Joseph and David G. Schaeffer for their efforts in bringing together many of the major figures in those research fields in which modelling of granular flows and suspensions is used. Avner Friedman Willard Miller, Jr. PREFACE This Workshop, held from January 3-10,1989 at IMA, focused on the properties of materials which consist of many small solid particles or grains. Let us distinguish the terms granular material and suspension. In the former, the material consists exclusively of solid particles interacting through direct contact with one another, either sustained frictional contacts in the case of slow shearing or collisions in the case of rapid shearing. In suspensions, also called two phase flow, the grains interact with one another primarily through the influence of a viscous fluid which occupies the interstitial space and participates in the flow. (As shown by the lecture of I. Vardoulakis (not included in this volume), the distinction between these two idealized cases is not always clear.

Solitary waves in compressible media of finite depth and infinite depth are studied. The critical speeds are first obtained from the linearized equations and then confirmed by the results of the nonlinear theory. Explicit expressions for the solitary waves are established by a perturbation scheme applied to the nonlinear equations. The case of a polytropic compressible medium of finite depth at rest in the state of equilibrium is studied. Solitary waves in compressible medium of infinite depth are investigated. The former concerns two isothermal layers at rest in the state of equilibrium separated by a contact surface; the latter, an isothermal layer with non-uniform velocity distribution at equilibrium. It is found that solitary waves vanish at certain values of characteristic parameters introduced in each case, and especially no solitary wave solution exists for an isothermal layer of infinite depth. (Author).

Excerpt from Solitary Waves in Compressible Media He used the vertical distance at equilibrium as one of the independent variables in place of the stream function. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.