Envelope solitons of acoustic plate modes and surface waves

The problem of the existence of evelope solitons in elastic plates and at solid surfaces covered by an elastic film is revisited with special attention paid to nonlinear long-wave short-wave interactions. Using asymptotic expansions and multiple scales, conditions for the existence of envelope solitons are established and it is shown how their parameters can be expressed in terms of the elastic moduli and mass densities of the materials involved. In addition to homogeneous plates, weak periodic modulation of the plate's material parameters are also considered. In the case of wave propagation in an elastic plate, modulations of weakly nonlinear carrier waves are governed by a coupled system of partial differential equations consisting of evolution equations for the complex amplitude of the carrier wave (the nonlinear Schrödinger equation for envelope solitons and the Mills-Trullinger equations for gap solitons), and the wave equation for long-wavelength acoustic plate modes. In contrast to this situation, envelope solitons of surface acoustic waves in a layered structure are normally described by the nonlinear Schrödinger equation alone. However, at higher orders of the carrier wave amplitude, the envelope soliton is found to be accompanied by a quasistatic long-wavelength strain field, which may be localized at the surface with penetration depth into the substrate of the order of the inverse amplitude or which may radiate energy into the bulk. A new set of modulation equations is derived for the resonant case of the carrier wave's group velocity being equal to the phase velocity of long-wavelength Rayleigh waves of the uncoated substrate.