Amplitude Modulation of Nonlinear Waves in Fluid-Filled Tapered Tubes

We study the modulation of nonlinear waves in fluid-filled prestressed tapered tubes. For this, we obtain the nonlinear dynamical equations of motion of a prestressed tapered tube filled with an incompressible inviscid fluid. Assuming that the tapering angle is small and using the reductive perturbation method, we study the amplitude modulation of nonlinear waves and obtain the nonlinear Schrödinger equation with variable coefficients as the evolution equation. A traveling-wave type of solution of such a nonlinear equation with variable coefficients is obtained, and we observe that in contrast to the case of a constant tube radius, the speed of the wave is variable. Namely, the wave speed increases with distance for narrowing tubes and decreases for expanding tubes.