Solitary waves in prestressed elastic tubes

In this work, we studied the propagation of non-linear waves in a pre-stressed thin elastic tube filled with an inviscid fluid. In the analysis, analogous to the physiological conditions of the arteries, the tube is assumed to be subject to a uniform pressureP ₀ and a constant axial stretch ratio λ_z. In the course of blood flow it is assumed that a large dynamic displacement is superimposed on this static field. Furthermore, assuming that the displacement gradient in the axial direction is small, the non-linear equation of motion of the tube is obtained. Using the reductive perturbation technique, the propagation of weakly non-linear waves in the long-wave approximation is investigated. It is shown that the governing equations reduce to the Korteweg-deVries equation which admits a solitary wave solution. The result is discussed for some elastic materials existing in the literature.