A HAMILTONIAN STRUCTURE FOR HYPERELASTIC
FLUID-FILLED TUBES

G.E. SWATERS

Abstract. The governing equations describing a tethered hyperelastic fluid-filled tube are shown to possess a noncanonical Hamiltonian formulation. The Hamiltonian structure is exploited to give a variational principle for finite-amplitude steadily-travelling solitary and periodic pressure pulses. Sufficient conditions for the linear and nonlinear stability in the sense of Liapunov are described for these solutions.