Flexural edge waves generated by steady-state propagation of a loaded rectilinear crack in an elastically supported thin plate

Flexural Edge Waves in a Thick Piezoelectric Film Resting on a Winkler Foundation

This paper is concerned with the analysis of bending edge waves travelling in a thick Kirchhoff-type piezoelectric film resting on a Winkler–Fuss foundation. The electromechanical coupling is accounted for in defining flexural rigidities to embrace piezoelectric and dielectric material constants. Dynamics is solved analytically and demonstrated numerically by assuming harmonic wave propagation. It is observed that an increase of the voltage leads to a decrease of the critical velocity, while an increase of the Winkler’s constant leads to an increase of the critical velocity.

A new Rayleigh-like wave in guided propagation of antiplane waves in couple stress materials

Motivated by the unexpected appearance of shear horizontal Rayleigh surface waves, we investigate the mechanics of antiplane wave reflection and propagation in couple stress (CS) elastic materials. Surface waves arise by mode conversion at a free surface, whereby bulk travelling waves trigger inhomogeneous modes. Indeed, Rayleigh waves are perturbations of the travelling mode and stem from its reflection at grazing incidence. As is well known, they correspond to the real zeros of the Rayleigh function. Interestingly, we show that the same generating mechanism sustains a new inhomogeneous wave, corresponding to a purely imaginary zero of the Rayleigh function. This wave emerges from 'reflection' of a bulk standing mode: This produces a new type of Rayleigh-like wave that travels away from, as opposed to along, the free surface, with a speed lower than that of bulk shear waves. Besides, a third complex zero of the Rayleigh function may exist, which represents waves attenuating/exploding both along and away from the surface. Since none of these zeros correspond to leaky waves, a new classification of the Rayleigh zeros is proposed. Furthermore, we extend to CS elasticity Mindlin's boundary conditions, by which partial waves are identified, whose interference lends Rayleigh-Lamb guided waves. Finally, asymptotic analysis in the thin-plate limit provides equivalent one-dimensional models.