RESUMEN

The nonlinear evolutionary equations previously derived for a plane with a rigid lid are here generalized to the free surface model. It is shown that similar equations are obtainable but the coefficients are strongly dependent on the Froude number, F, of the flow. (F is defined as U/ (gd) ^1/2, where U is the basic uniform flow, g the gravitational acceleration and d the mean depth of the layer.) When F vanishes, the evolutionary equations reduce to those derived previously for the rigid lid model. The equations possess a dunetrain solution. The stability of this solution is analyzed and found to depend crucially on F. It is found, however, that for all values of F a dunetrain can develop into a solitary. The above results apply only when the phase shift δ, originally introduced for the instability of the linear problem, vanishes. For other admissible values of δ, the analysis showed that the neutral solution of the linear theory prevails in the nonlinear regime.