A novel method for travelling wave solutions of fractional Whitham–Broer–Kaup,fractional modified Boussinesq and fractional approximate long wave equations in shallow water

In this paper, the analytical approximate traveling wave solutions of Whitham–Broer–Kaup (WBK) equations, which contain blow‐up solutions and periodic solutions, have been obtained by using the coupled fractional reduced differential transform method. By using this method, the solutions were calculated in the form of a generalized Taylor series with easily computable components. The convergence of the method as applied to the WBK equations is illustrated numerically as well as analytically. By using the present method, we can solve many linear and nonlinear coupled fractional differential equations. The results justify that the proposed method is also very efficient, effective and simple for obtaining approximate solutions of fractional coupled modified Boussinesq and fractional approximate long wave equations. Numerical solutions are presented graphically to show the reliability and efficiency of the method. Moreover, the results are compared with those obtained by the Adomian decomposition method (ADM) and variational iteration method (VIM), revealing that the present method is superior to others. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.