Weakly Nonlinear Lower-Branch Stability of Fully Developed and Developing Free-Surface Flows

We examine the weakly nonlinear stability of both fully developedand of developing liquid layers. The study of these free-surfaceflows is more complicated than that of many other flows owingto the fully nonlinear boundary conditions present. The scalingsused for the two problems follow from the work of J. S. B. Gajjar,who described their linear stability properties. We use thetechnique given by F. T. Smith to derive amplitude equationsof the type presented by J. T. Stuart and J. Watson. Both flowsare found to be supercritically stable in general and a varietyof asymptotic cases are considered.