Title: Upper bound on wave speeds in anisotropic materials based on elastic projection operators

Authors: Q.H. Zuo

Addresses: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama 35899, USA

Abstract: An upper bound on the speeds of waves propagating along an arbitrary direction in an elastic material with general anisotropy has been developed from an additive decomposition of the acoustic tensor. Several examples of materials with different elastic symmetries (cubic, tetragonal) are presented. A validation is provided by comparing the upper bounds for copper and tin crystals with numerical solutions of the eigenvalue problems.

Keywords: anisotropy; wave speeds; polarisation directions; eigenvalue problems; upper bound; acoustic tensor; elasticity tensor; elastic projection operators; anisotropic materials; elastic symmetries; copper crystals; tin crystals.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTAMM.2009.022468

International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Multiscale Mechanics, 2009 Vol.1 No.1, pp.16 - 29

Published online: 08 Jan 2009 *

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