Bidirectional soliton street

The bidirectional long-wave model introduced by Wu (1994)^[1] and Yih & Wu (1995)^[2] is applied to evaluate interactions between multiple solitary waves progressing in both directions in a uniform channel of rectangular cross-section and undergoing collisions of two classes, one being head-on and the other overtaking collisions between these solitons. For a binary head-on collision, the two interacting solitary waves are shown to merge during a phase-locking period from which they reemerge separated, each asymptotically recovering its own initial identity while both being retarded in phase from their original pathlines. For a binary overtaking collision between a soliton of height α₁ overtaking a weaker one of height α₁, the two solition peaks are shown to either pass through each other or remain separated throughout the encounter according as α₁/α₂ or <3, respectively. With no phase locking during the overtaking, the two solitary waves re-emerge afterwards with their initial forms recovered and with the stronger wave being advanced whereas the weaker one retarded in phase from their original pathlines. By extension, the theory is generalized to apply to uniform channels of arbitrary cross-sectional shape. The Inaugural Pei-Yuan Chou Memorial Lecture, presented at The Sixth Asian Congress of Fluid Mechanics. Singapore, 21–26 May 1995