On a class of internal solitary waves in a two-layer fluid

Solitary waves on an interface between two fluids are considered. A uniform asymptotic expansion is constructed for internal solitary waves with flat crests (of the plateau type) that degenerate into a bore in the limit. It is shown that, in this case, in contrast to a Korteweg-de Vries wave, the wave amplitude is of the same order of smallness as the longwave approximation parameter. Lavrent’ev Institute of Hydrodynamics, Siberian Division, Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk 630090. Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika i Tekhnicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 40, No. 5, pp. 55–61, September–October, 1999.