Internal solitary waves (ISWs) are commonly observed in the ocean, and they play important roles in many ways, such as transport of mass and various nutrients through propagation. The fluids considered in this thesis are assumed to be incompressible, inviscid, non-diffusive and to be weakly affected by the Earth's rotation. Comparisons of the evolution of an initial solitary wave predicted by a fully nonlinear model, IGW, and two weakly-nonlinear wave equations, the Ostrovsky equation and a new alternative Ostrovsky equation, are done. Resolution tests have been run for each of the models to confirm that the current choices of the spatial and time steps are appropriate. Then we have run three numerical simulations with varying initial wave amplitudes. The rigid-lid approximation has been used for all of the models. Stratification, flat bottom and water depth stay the same for all three simulations. In the simulation analysis, we use the results from the IGW as the standard. Both of the two weakly nonlinear models give fairly good predictions regarding the leading wave amplitudes, shapes of the wave train and the propagation speeds. However, the weakly nonlinear models over-predict the propagation speed of the leading solitary wave and that the alternative Ostrovsky equation gives the worst prediction. The difference between the two weakly nonlinear models decreases as the initial wave amplitude decreases.

Large amplitude internal solitary waves in the coastal ocean are commonly modelled with the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation or a closely related evolution equation. The characteristic feature of these models is the solitary wave solution, and it is well documented that these provide the basic paradigm for the interpretation of oceanic observations. However, often internal waves in the ocean survive for several inertial periods, and in that case, the KdV equation is supplemented with a linear non-local term representing the effects of background rotation, commonly called the Ostrovsky equation. This equation does not support solitary wave solutions, and instead a solitary-like initial condition collapses due to radiation of inertia-gravity waves, with instead the long-time outcome typically being an unsteady nonlinear wave packet. The KdV equation and the Ostrovsky equation are formulated on the assumption that only a single vertical mode is used. In this thesis we consider the situation when two vertical modes are used, due to a near-resonance between their respective linear long wave phase speeds. This phenomenon can be described by a pair of coupled Ostrovsky equations, which is derived asymptotically from the full set of Euler equations and solved numerically using a pseudo-spectral method. The derivation of a system of coupled Ostrovsky equations is an important extension of coupled KdV equations on the one hand, and a single Ostrovsky equation on the other hand. The analytic structure and dynamical behaviour of the system have been elucidated in two main cases. The first case is when there is no background shear flow, while the second case is when the background state contains current shear, and both cases lead to new solution types with rich dynamical behaviour. We demonstrate that solitary-like initial conditions typically collapse into two unsteady nonlinear wave packets, propagating with distinct speeds corresponding to the extremum value in the group velocities. However, a background shear flow allows for several types of dynamical behaviour, supporting both unsteady and steady nonlinear wave packets, propagating with the speeds which can be predicted from the linear dispersion relation. In addition, in some cases secondary wave packets are formed associated with certain resonances which also can be identified from the linear dispersion relation. Finally, as a by-product of this study it was shown that a background shear flow can lead to the anomalous version of the single Ostrovsky equation, which supports a steady wave packet.

There exists substantial applications motivating the study of nonlinear longitudinal wave propagation in layered (or laminated) elastic waveguides, in particular within areas related to non-destructive testing, where there is a demand to understand, reinforce, and improve deformation properties of such structures. It has been shown [76] that long longitudinal waves in such structures can be accurately modelled by coupled regularised Boussinesq (cRB) equations, provided the bonding between layers is sufficiently soft. The work in this thesis firstly examines the initial-value problem (IVP) for the system of cRB equations in [76] on the infinite line, for localised or sufficiently rapidly decaying initial conditions. Using asymptotic multiple-scales expansions, a nonsecular weakly nonlinear solution of the IVP is constructed, up to the accuracy of the problem formulation. The asymptotic theory is supported with numerical simulations of the cRB equations. The weakly nonlinear solution for the equivalent IVP for a single regularised Boussinesq equation is then constructed; constituting an extension of the classical d'Alembert's formula for the leading order wave equation. The initial conditions are also extended to allow one to separately specify an O(1) and O(ε) part. Large classes of solutions are derived and several particular examples are explicitly analysed with numerical simulations. The weakly nonlinear solution is then improved by considering the IVP for a single regularised Boussinesq-type equation, in order to further develop the higher order terms in the solution. More specifically, it enables one to now correctly specify the higher order term's time dependence. Numerical simulations of the IVP are compared with several examples to justify the improvement of the solution. Finally an asymptotic procedure is developed to describe the class of radiating solitary wave solutions which exist as solutions to cRB equations under particular regimes of the parameters. The validity of the analytical solution is examined with numerical simulations of the cRB equations. Numerical simulations throughout this work are derived and implemented via developments of several finite difference schemes and pseudo-spectral methods, explained in detail in the appendices.