Pressure Beneath a Solitary Water Wave: Mathematical Theory and Experiments

We study the pressure beneath a solitary water wave propagating in an irrotational flow at the free surface of water with a flat bed. The investigation is divided into two parts. The first part concerns a rigorous nonlinear study of the governing equations for water waves. We prove that the pressure in the fluid beneath a solitary wave strictly increases with depth and strictly decreases horizontally away from the vertical line beneath the crest. The second part of the paper describes an experimental study. Excellent agreement is found to exist between the theoretical predictions and the measurements. Our conclusions are also supported by numerical simulations.