Kovalevskaya Rods and Kovalevskaya Waves

The Kirchhoff analogy for elastic rods establishes the equivalence between the solutions of the classical spinning top and the stationary solutions of the Kirchhoff model for thin elastic rods with circular cross-sections. In this paper the Kirchhoff analogy is further generalized to show that the classical Kovalevskaya solution for the rigid body problem is formally equivalent to the solution of the Kirchhoff model for thin elastic rod with anisotropic cross-sections (elastic strips). These Kovalevskaya rods are completely integrable and are part of a family of integrable travelling waves solutions for the rod (Kovalevskaya waves). The analysis of homoclinic twistless Kovalevskaya rod reveals the existence of a three parameter family of solutions corresponding to the Steklov and Bobylev integrable case of the rigid body problem. Furthermore, the existence of these integrable solutions is discussed in conjunction with recent results on the stability of strips.